The Daily Digest

Twins

Jennifer Rubin, who recently skewered Fred Thompson, hearts Mike Huckabee.

Onion-esque headline: CIA to Vindicate Conspiracy Theorists. Subtitle: Agency cops to quarter-century of drugging American citizens, opening our mail, and wiretapping and kidnapping us. Serious details in today's Post.

Demonstrating why he was the president's former chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson defends John McCain with eloquence, erudition and pith. "On occasion, Senator John McCain seems like a martyr anxious for the stake, offering his own lighter to get the proceedings started. His flamboyant heresies on campaign finance reform, global warming and immigration have left conservatives suspicious that he has a mild form of Chuck Hagel's disease: an uncontrollable moral exhibitionism designed to please the liberal media. . . . [But] [t]his is not moral exhibitionism; it is just morality. And my respect for McCain, it turns out, is less and less grudging."

Ron Rosenbaum wants to know the last time you read a celebrity profile that was disparaging? While you're thinking, chew on this: "The rules of the game, as established by the glossy magazines and the stars' PR reps, ensure that 'access' (well, a half-hour chat in a restaurant that enables the magazine to proclaim it has an 'exclusive' interview) and the all-important exclusive cover shot are granted only to those magazines and journalists who will refrain from anything but fawning prose. It works out well for everybody. Celebrity journalists who play along get a good payday, magazines get newsstand sales bumps, and the rest of us are inculcated into the received myths of Celebland, the legends that sustain the illusion that it is somehow truly important."