Our guest columnist is David Brooks.

Two years ago, Democrats waxed romantic. This year, the Republicans seem modest and cautious. I haven’t seen this many sober Republicans since America lost the Ryder Cup.

We have to be careful not to get carried away, says Lamar Alexander, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate. “I was thinking about putting photos of Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman in the Republican cloakroom to remind us not to overreach,” he told me on Monday.

We have to beware of unrealistic expectations, emphasized Senator Jon Kyl, the second-ranking Republican. Republicans can’t accomplish big things without Democratic help. They can’t defund Obamacare on their own or pass a new tax law.

Many Americans are still skeptical about us, acknowledged Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House. We can’t do anything that might unsettle them, like shutting down the government. Instead, Republicans need to offer reassurance…

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And only a day after Orrin Hatch trotted out Thurston Howell III.

Sherwood Schwartz, Creator of Gilligan and the Bradys, Dies at 94 [NYT]

“President Obama on Tuesday said he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks August 3 if Democrats and Republicans in Washington do not reach an agreement on reducing the deficit in the coming weeks.” [CBS]

While Michele Bachmann’s Wacky Family Business is familiar to anyone who follows politics, it hasn’t been part of the Lamestream Narrative. Until now.

ABC’s World News Tonight:

A former patient who sought help from the Christian counseling clinic owned by GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, told ABC News he was advised that prayer could rid him of his homosexual urges and he could eventually be “re-oriented.”

NBC’s Today Show:

NBC’s Michael Isikoff reports that undercover video taken from Michele Bachmann’s Christian counseling center reveals that her therapists are using prayer and Bible scriptures to help cure people of homosexual tendencies.

Welcome to the Show, Michele. Your bigoted teabagger fans won’t care, but the rest of America just caught their first glimpse of what you’re really about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZFX7C1a94U

Our guest columnist is Matthew Chapman, writer and director of the new movie “The Ledge”, which does for atheists what the “Atlas Shrugged” movie did for Libertarians.

This could be the Brokeback Mountain moment for atheists, our tipping point, when we finally get the attention we deserve. Although books have put atheists into the intellectual mainstream, The Ledge is the first Hollywood drama to target the broader movie-going public with an openly atheist hero in a production big enough to attract A-list stars. This is unprecedented.

Although the film was nominated for Best US Drama for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and has huge potential to promote atheism, it could also be a crushing defeat. How many watch it — and it just came in 3rd in Russia against Pirates of the Caribbean and Kung Fu Panda — determines the push it will get nationwide. If Brokeback Mountain had failed at the box office, it would have scared investors away from gay-centric films for a decade. When Passion Of The Christ came out, it was heavily supported by Christians, and consequently Hollywood made several more faith-based films. It is vital that we atheists prove that we support films that support us. This is how the door opens.

How to help The Ledge [Ledge Movie]

Director hopes new film will be ‘Brokeback Mountain’ for atheists [Raw Story]

Fifteen years ago, Herman Cain recorded an album of gospel tunes. You’ll have to visit Weigel to listen to them, because we just don’t have the nerve.

If you haven’t heard, Sarah Palin, um, graces the cover of the latest Newsweek, which is now run by Tina Brown, which explains the shamelessness.

And if, like us, you find yourself visiting the web version of the cover story, you’ll see the above photo, captioned “See more images from Sarah Palin’s cover shoot with photographer Emily Shur.”

And if, like us, you dawdle your mouse over that photo, you’ll see the alt-text “palin-newsweek-tease”.

Which is easily explained: In the biz, a “tease” is just a promo, an offer to click through for more detail. For the geeks running the Newsweek site, it’s merely a means of labeling one of the elements of the presentation, for easy reference.

We suspect, however, that like us, you don’t really care. For palin-newsweek-tease so perfectly captures the story, the person, the presentation, and the phenomenon, the only possible explanation is Divine Intervention by a mischievous deity who has an adorable weakness for shits & giggles.

Palin Plots Her Next Move [Newsweek]