PJ O’Rourke has cancer. And he laughs in its face.

I looked death in the face. All right, I didn’t. I glimpsed him in a crowd. I’ve been diagnosed with cancer, of a very treatable kind. I’m told I have a 95% chance of survival. Come to think of it — as a drinking, smoking, saturated-fat hound — my chance of survival has been improved by cancer.

…
I have, of all the inglorious things, a malignant hemorrhoid. What color bracelet does one wear for that? And where does one wear it? And what slogan is apropos? Perhaps that slogan can be sewn in needlepoint around the ruffle on a cover for my embarrassing little doughnut buttocks pillow.

Furthermore, I am a logical, sensible, pragmatic Republican, and my diagnosis came just weeks after Teddy Kennedy’s. That he should have cancer of the brain, and I should have cancer of the ass … well, I’ll say a rosary for him and hope he has a laugh at me. After all, what would I do, ask God for a more dignified cancer? Pancreatic? Liver? Lung?

I wrote the other day about how a few conservatives are starting to regret their earlier support for Palin

Kathleen Parker:

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn.

and contrasted that with the campaign to ’set sarah palin free’:

KLo:

You’re the one who is going to win this election. Be yourself. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Apparently, anything other than wholehearted support is tantamount to treason, as both Kathleens discovered from their mailbag:

To Parker:

Your article sounds more like a female on the rug. You don’t do yourself credit for the lousy journalism you displayed in your article. The article filled with so much BS, mud slinging, it came to a point it became unbearable to read any more drool from your part. So I must ask you, are you some pig that resembles Rosy O’Donnell, or do you hate real feminine, soft and powerful woman who has reversed years of corruption in Alaska, and fearful that she will do the same thing, but her problem that might shatter this dream is her poor performance in a few interviews?

and

My, My, Kathleen, what a nice conservative facade you have!! Truly, your aren’t fooling anyone with your so called concern for the betterment of the Republican Party by asking Sarah Palin to get off the ticket. What you did was embarrass yourself and negate every positive article you ever wrote about Republicans. See, I think you are a fake — a wolf in sheep clothing. A pretend conservative. Someone who can’t be relied on in tough times and has zero loyalty. Someone who lies in wait to attack. In your dark heart, that opportunity couldn’t come too soon. So, please, spare us conservatives, who actually care about supporting our party through smooth & rough roads, with your disingenuous regrets.

and to Lopez:

You belong on MSNBC. You’re no republican and should be ashamed of what you wrote. You’re a disgrace to this journal and the republican party. Everyone knows you are a democrat with a name Lopez. I don’t ever want to hear from you. Thousands of complaints about you have been expressed.”

Read the rest. Amazing.

I can understand that you might face the ire of the base if you criticize their heroine, but Ramesh Ponnuru got the hairdryer treatment for reporting the bailout as he saw it:

A reader:

Over the next few days I expect to see your posts—that the bailout failure should all be blamed on  Republicans (despite 40% of Dems not voting for it), and that Republicans deserve the blame for the coming Depression that you predict.

Comments like yours are gold to the MSM and to Democrats in the weeks before an election,  because when such comments come from the left they don’t have any sting.  But coming from you guys, they can really make the story and swing votes left.

I don’t get the point of it.

and Ramesh’s response:

Speaking only for myself, the point of it is to say what I think is true, whether or not it helps the candidates I hope win. Whatever value there may be to reading me would disappear if I wrote only comments that help Republicans.

Ramesh should know by now that truth has a liberal bias.

I don’t understand why McCain did not choose his best buddy Lindsey Graham as his running mate. Especially when he goes around saying smart stuff like this:

“I’m going to choose the bad choice over the catastrophic choice.” And then he said, “We don’t have the luxury of kicking this can down the road like we did with immigration or Social Security and dealing with it another day, hoping somebody braver than us will come along and have courage that we can’t muster to deal with immigration or Social Security. This is on our watch.”