Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the front row of history! I am in receipt of an email from a FRIDAY FACE-OFF FINALIST!

Remember this burner from the second installment of Friday Face-Offs?

At the time, I wrote:

Sweet Jesus, don’t you remember what those moments felt like? When you were surging on a hot jam in the prime of your youth? When you were loving some pop song so much that you wanted to pound right through your keyboard or smash your guitar over your own head, or at least not study for algebra so goddamn much?

Imagine my “HELL YEAH” when I opened my email to read:

I’m the shirtless piano player in the rec room playing the suffering. And I got 2nd place?! AWESOMENESS! Thank you very much! For the record, I’m no 10th grader taking a break from algebra homework. I’m 25 and a fellow political junkie. I’m now a regular viewer/reader at mnftiu. Keep up the awesome work . . .

I always knew Friday Face-Offs would become the greatest internet sensation of all time . . . that it would make eBay look like a little punk . . . that it would crush amazon.com with the greatest of ease . . . but I never knew how much ass it would kick right from the get-go! NOW I KNOW.

(Thanks to KT for letting me post his email message!)

Friday Face-Offs! WE’LL DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN TOMORROW!!!

Read talkingpointmemo’s entire liveblog here.

HIGHLIGHTS:

9:12 PM … When they invented the term “shit eating grin” were they thinking about John McCain?

9:26 PM … McCain: I went sleazy because Obama wouldn’t do a hundred townhalls with me.

9:33 PM … What on earth is McCain talking about? Obama’s attacking vets wearing vet caps?

9:53 PM … I need to see a slo-mo of McCain’s weird eyebrow response to Obama’s line about the assassination of labor leaders in Colombia.

10:01 PM … Is that McCain’s look when he gets totally blown out of the water?

10:04 PM … John McCain: Hurting and Angry.

10:11 PM … Wow, McCain tries to play the infanticide card. Right off the fringe websites. Utter-bottom feeding.

10:17 PM … If John McCain hyperventilates, does he lose points?

LOL, are you kidding me? THE ECONOMIST likes the new GYWO book?

Enjoy this long, comprehensive review from The Economist‘s supplemental magazine. Here’s a sample:

Between fusillades, Rees reveals some surprising characteristics for an angry cartoonist. One is prescience; in early 2002, he was riffing about war in Iraq, although it would not begin for another year. In spring 2006 he began to rib John McCain for shedding his maverick suit for an ill-fitting orthodox Republican one. And he has long criticised the way America’s relentless campaign in Iraq has pulled resources and attention away from Afghanistan, well before Barack Obama made this concern mainstream. . . .

But perhaps Rees’s most striking quality is his persistence in spotlighting the unending bloodshed. The years have ushered a parade of Washington obsessions — the Iraq Study Group, the Plame Affair, the Democratic takeover of Congress, warrantless wiretapping, etc — yet Rees has been rare in his dedication to reminding readers that real people continue to die violently, and at an alarming rate.

(My emphasis.)

Let’s face it, gang:

1. I AM THE BEST.
2. EVERYBODY NEEDS TO BUY FIFTY COPIES OF MY BOOK.
3. THE END.

LOL, next up I want a glowing review from the Financial Times‘ supplemental magazine, “How To Spend It.” (It’s for rich people). LOL, LOL, please review my book alongside some fancy wristwatches! I propose a photo spread of me on a yacht in a white suit wearing a thick-ass diamond watch pouring champagne all over my book while Damien Hirst is looking at me like, “Why can’t I be a seething genius like him?” LOL! Let’s do this!

Matt Taibbi wrote the introduction to that book you’re supposed to buy fifty copies of.

He just did a live chat interview with National Review’s Byron York on the banking crisis. (York is one of those conservatives who blames the collapse of the international financial system on . . . minority homeowners.)

Here’s how the interview ends: Not with a bang, but with an LOL:

MATT TAIBBI: I mean really. You honestly think a company like AIG tanks because a bunch of minorities couldn’t pay off their mortgages?

BYRON YORK: When you refer to “Phil Gramm’s Commodities Future Modernization Act,” are you referring to S.3283, co-sponsored by Gramm, along with Senators Tom Harkin and Tim Johnson?

M.T.: In point of fact I’m talking about the 262-page amendment Gramm tacked on to that bill that deregulated the trade of credit default swaps. . . . Tick tick tick. Hilarious sitting here while you frantically search the Internet to learn about the cause of the financial crisis — in the middle of a live chat interview.

B.Y.: Look, you can keep trying to make this a specifically partisan and specifically Gramm-McCain thing, but it simply isn’t. We’ve gone on for fifteen minutes longer than scheduled, and that’s enough. Thanks.

M.T.: Thanks. Note, folks, that the esteemed representative of the New Republic has no idea what the hell a credit default swap is. But he sure knows what a minority homeowner looks like.

B.Y.: It’s National Review.

Taibbi will join me on Sunday, October 26 for a fun event at the Bowery Poetry Club.

When will Mike Krzyzewski endorse a presidential candidate? Seriously, how can we make an informed decision without the wisdom of COACH K to guide us?

If Barack Obama wins my home state of North Carolina, I am going to post 100 Tar Heel-themed animated gifs on my blog.

“Despite the pundits, despite the prognosticators, despite the cynicism,” Obama said at the dinner, “we are right here in the hunt in North Carolina. We can win at the top of the ballot in North Carolina. And we win at the bottom of the ballot in North Carolina. We can win in the eastern part of the state and in the western part. We can elect a new Democratic governor here in North Carolina and we can elect a new U.S. senator here in North Carolina.”

“We are right here in the hunt in North Carolina.”

I received this trenchant email from a reader yesterday:

On Friday I bought 1/50th the amount of GYWO books recommended by your weblog. (everyone has to buy fifty copies of my book –ed.) This morning the merchandise arrived in the mail and just this moment the New York Times is reporting that the market is up 11% and the Dow Jones recorded its greatest single-day gains of all time. Are your book sales (combined with ad revenue from your new more-than-warm blog) driving the economic recovery?

Answer: YES.

If you want to save the economy, you know what to do!

Forgot to post this on Friday!

Still waiting . . .

“We’ll canvass this neighborhood and coordinate our GOTV efforts.”