The past few weeks have been intensely frustrating. Not because of the election — everybody saw that coming — but because of all the unsolicited misdiagnosed advice we’ve had to slog through since then.

It was the economy, stupid. It was always the economy. And it’ll still be the economy two years from now.

Unless, of course, it was the stories.

That’s the remedy a couple of pixel-pushers at HuffPo are hawking — Republicans tell better stories than Democrats:

Conservatives are the heroes of their own stories. Progressives need to internalize that same sense of pride in their efforts and then infuse their policy narratives with political champions.

Before we continue, let’s note for the record that “infuse their policy narratives” is a compelling example of shitty storytelling. In the movie version, the doctor would be smoking like a chimney in the examination room.

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“Sarah Palin lost almost half of her premiere audience in the second airing of her TLC reality series Sarah Palin’s Alaska. On Sunday, the series executive produced by Mark Burnett, drew 3 million viewers. That is down 40% from the 5 million who tuned in for the debut last Sunday… Meanwhile, AMC’s zombie drama The Walking Dead (4.8 million), continued to hold steady, down 5% from the previous week in total viewers.” [Deadline.com]

“The South Korean military went to ‘crisis status’ on Tuesday and threatened military strikes after the North fired dozens of shells at a South Korean island, killing two of the South’s soldiers and setting off an exchange of fire in one of the most serious clashes between the two sides in decades.” [NYT]

Larry King gets to the bottom of The Great Fetus Jar Mystery:

KING: You also disclose, Barbara — George discloses something very personal about you, which he says you gave him special permission to write about. He wrote that when you once had a miscarriage, you showed him the fetus in the jar.

BARBARA BUSH: No, really, the truth is…

KING: We touched on it before. But we didn’t elaborate.

BARBARA BUSH: I didn’t put it in the jar.

KING: What?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPw0UGZwTvk

We spent Monday evening dwelling on what to do about the new Senator from Utah — besides six years of unsatisfying oblique references — but we’re not quite sure yet about our Course of Devious Action. Instead, to buy some time, we bring you The Most Awesome Mike Lee in the World.

A Hard Line on Debt: Tea Party Sen Says “No Way” [ABC]

Everybody’s getting a chuckle today out of this frame from a cartoon sitcom that peaked about fifteen years ago. But honestly, you can’t top the original.

This would be a lot more amusing to civilians if The Management didn’t insist on maintaining Plausible Deniability.

[Weigel]