Newsday writes about Rep. Peter King (R-NY), prompting thousands of Hill interns to wonder, "Wait... can we do that?"

"Her first letter to me was very abusive, then she came back with another snotty letter, so I said what the hell," [King] said. ... [He] responded: "I am in receipt of your March 5th e-mail and regret that you don't know as much about social security as you pretend."

TNR's Notebook, on throes:

Clearly, then, we see what Cheney meant. The insurgency, as any fair observer would admit, entered its last throes sometime about six months ago. After all, that's when the Iraqi elections took place, which the administration contended all along would deal a serious setback to the insurgency. Who could have known that setback would be so severe as to cause the insurgency to enter its 'last throes'? Well, Dick Cheney - who also understands that a throe knows no temporal bounds. Add to the list of practitioners of such sublime, exalted levels of knowledge Cheney's old mentor, Donald Rumsfeld, who added on 'Fox News Sunday' that the insurgency might continue through 2017. See? It's a long throe. One might even be tempted to call it a Hail Mary.

Har!

Richard Cohen writes a terrific column about The Truth About Hillary. Key quotes:

1. "...the very fact his book is selling like proverbial hotcakes starkly exposes the anti-Clinton people as the village idiots of our time."

2. "The real reason such conservatives frequently wear Gucci loafers is that they cannot tie their own shoes."

An explanatory note:

I've decided to start posting to The Purple State again (though mostly without Adam [which, admittedly, pretty much makes this "The Blue State," but as that name is banal and gauche, I will stick with The Purple State, which is witty and clever, or at least was when we first thought of it]). It'll be sparse at first, but I'd like to eventually (post-summer) get back to the five-to-seven-links-per-day pace that I was on before laziness and political disappointment (mostly laziness) caused me to drop the ball back in January or February (or whenever I stopped the first time). So to all my loyal readers (ha!): sit back, relax, and get ready for some infrequent, mild amusement.