Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 852

Paul Ryan Is Popular in Iowa, but Not Hillary Clinton Popular

AP

For some reason the Des-Moines Register wants to know how people feel about potential 2016 presidential candidates despite the fact that the election is three years away. 

The paper found that Paul Ryan is "wildly popular" in Iowa among adults polled about their way-too-early Presidential predictions. Out of a pool of ten potential Republican candidates, the former member of the 2012 Republican ticket is for some reason a "surprising choice," according to the Register. What's actually surprising is that well-trodden long shots like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, for instance, scored much higher than plucky upstart, Ted Cruz. 

Mr. Cruz tied with Scott Walker and Marco Rubio as the least liked candidates among all Republicans polled. "Cruz, a vocal opponent of the Affordable Care Act, has the highest negatives of the bottom three on the GOP popularity scale," the Register notes. Many admitted not knowing enough about Cruz to even have an opinion. 

If someone like Cruz or Walker can get a "grassroots army" behind them, then poll results might be much different. Remember when Michele Bachman won the Ames Straw Poll in 2011, when it was traditionally a reliable bellwether for the Republican primaries? Let's never, ever let Iowa live that down because we all know how that turned out. 

The looming Republican primary rumble really doesn't matter because they'll all lose to Hillary Clinton anyway. She's so popular that if an election was called for tomorrow, Clinton would be in "a position of strength in Iowa just short of that of an incumbent president," the Register says.

And, of course, it's too early to tell what might happen over the next three years. So many things can happen — triumphs, scandals and flubs —popularity will fluxuate so much before election day that polling people now, especially in Iowa, makes no sense. Hey, let's do polls about the midterm elections. Those are next year!

       

The Second 'Hobbit' to Rule Them All

Welcome to the Box Office Report, where we always considered Smaug an upstanding citizen who did not deserve to be desolated. 

1. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Buena Vista): $73.7 million in 3,903 theaters

Bilbo and co. return with a strong but not remarkable opening weekend. The latest Hobbit story didn't quite match the $84 million that the first movie earned, and couldn't top the $75 million opening Hunger Games had a few weeks ago, but, all in all, Desolation of Smaug's opening was respectable enough. A nice, tidy sum studio executives can be proud of and show mom without fears of getting scolded. 

Besides, globally The Hobbit's doing juuust fine. 

2. Frozen (Beuna Vista): $22.2 million in 3,716 theaters 

Three weeks later and Disney's extremely popular musical remains near the top, at least a head and a shoulder above the rest of the competition. I should probably get to a theater and see this one, yes? Yes.

3. Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas (Lionsgate): $16 million in 2,194 theaters 

I honestly had to Google this to make sure it wasn't Tyler Perry re-releasing a straight-to-DVD special. Apparently it's not, which is shocking. How did Tyler Perry not do a Madea Christmas movie until now? There must be a glitch in the matrix; I'm certain this already happened. 

4. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Lionsgate): $13.1 million in 3,563 theaters 

This week the District 13ers crossed the $350 million mark domestically, and, at $739 million globally, passed the entire gross of the first movie. So many people are watching poor Peeta fail completely at everything.

5. Thor: The Dark World (Buena Vista): $4.7 million in 3,074 theaters 

Gotta be someone on the bottom, so it might as well be the thunder god. 

       

China's Powerful Former Security Chief Is in All Kinds of Trouble

Chinese President Xi Jinping walks past politicians, including Zhou Yong Kang, left. (AP)

This has not been a good week for powerful people in Communist Asian countries. After months of rumours, The New York Times is reporting that Chinese president Xi Jinping is formally opening an inquiry into a powerful member of the Communist Party's innermost circle: its former chief of domestic security.

The accusations levied at Zhou Yongkang – murder, corruption, and plotting to overthrow the government – detonates the perception that China is loath to hassle its topmost political leaders with such sticky matters as the law. To give a sense of how significant this is, The Daily Beast called Zhou China's third most powerful politician. In American terms, this would be akin to President Lyndon B. Johnson taking on FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. And if the convictions stick, it would be a likely death sentence for Zhou, not to mention a huge indication that President Xi's anti-corruption campaign means business.

Though state media has been vocal about Xi's tough stance since his bold entry earlier this year, the numbers themselves have appeared to underwhelm. But he promised to catch tigers, not flies, and it appears he may have caught one, and would represent a bold power play. 

The Times reports that while the government had been covertly investigating Zhou for months, quietly restricting his movement, he is now under house arrest with his wife in Beijing.

Mr. Xi and other leaders agreed by early December to put the elder Mr. Zhou directly under formal investigation by the party’s commission for rooting out corruption and abuses of power, the sources said. They said a senior official went to Mr. Zhou’s home in central Beijing to inform him about the inquiry, and Mr. Zhou and his wife, Jia Xiaoye, have since been held under constant guard.

To this point, the biggest bust has been the case of Bo Xilai, a trial that made headlines internationally for the fact that Bo was once a rising political star who sits on the Politburo and whose father was once friends with Chairman Mao. That's small potatoes now, as Zhou – who counted Bo as a close ally – was once part of the elite Standing Committee. (Bo, for what it's worth, was found guilty of all charges in a trial that was hailed as very transparent despite the fact journalists weren't actually allowed into the courtroom.)

It's also worth noting that both Bo and Zhou are widely known to have been involved in the persecution of Falun Gong, a meditative practice that the Communist Party saw as being too big for its britches before cracking down – often inhumanely – upon the spiritual movement in the late 1990s.

One of the charges against Zhou, seen as something of a strongman, centres around an affair with a woman who is now his wife. After the affair was discovered, he promised to divorce his wife – who died soon after in a car crash. Chinese media have reported that his drivers have confessed that Zhou ordered the car crash.

Again, to The Daily Beast, for the rest of the allegations:

In addition, recent overseas reports claim that Zhou had been accused of playing a key role in mafia-style killings of several political opponents, including three businessmen and a prominent military figure, and plotting to seize power from President Xi Jinping to protect the economic interest of his family and friends. 

The investigation has been long simmering, since at least 2012. 

       

NSA's Possible Snowden Amnesty Offer Is A False Olive Branch

Protesters in Germany ask Chancellor Angela Merkel to offer Edward Snowden asylum in November. (AP)

Good news, it seems, for NSA leaker Edward Snowden: A man expected to take over soon as the NSA's top civilian says amnesty is something "worth having a conversation about." But before Snowden starts packing up his stuff to head home from his Russian exile, he should probably take a minute and realize this deal isn't going to happen.

First, what happened: Richard Ledgett, the NSA's Snowden leak czar, filmed an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes (set to air tonight) where he suggested amnesty was on the table. Snowden currently faces charges of espionage, theft and conversion of government property. 

So here are just three reasons why that won't happen:

It's not for Ledgett to say.

Ledgett may yet be the next deputy director of the NSA with the surprise retirement of John Inglis, but that doesn't override the powers and responsibilities of the federal government, which remains unmoved on the whole matter of, y'know, their stance that this threatened national security. (They typically don't let those kinds of things go.)

Our position has not changed. Mr Snowden is facing very serious charges and should return to the United States to face them.

- State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf

It also doesn't change the fact that the deputy is mostly in charge of the day-to-day operations. That wasn't the case with Inglis, who did more than his job technically entails, but it's widely expected that the NSA will be going through some top-to-bottom changes with this recent embarrassment, and there's no telling what the formal responsibilities of the deputy's job will be. There is also no telling who the deputy will report to, as NSA chief General Keith Alexander will step down with his deputy in the new year. (For what it's worth, Alexander says this would actually be an enticing treat for those thinking of copying Snowden, saying: "This is analogous to a hostage-taker taking 50 people hostage, shooting 10 and then say, 'If you give me full amnesty, I'll let the other 40 go.' What do you do?")

One would think that there would have to be someone in the lead chair before a theoretical heir got to make statements like offering amnesty to one of the more wanted men in the world.  

It's almost impossible to reach Ledgett's amnesty conditions.

I would need assurances that the remainder of the data could be secured, and my bar for those assurances would be very high. It would be more than just an assertion on his part.

What Ledgett wants is, essentially, all his stuff back, no questions asked, like a Craigslist ad for a missing iPhone. The problem with that is that there are other people with some of his stuff:  journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, for two, still have possession of the entire Snowden data trove.

Plus, Greenwald suggested that others have some, too:

@trh_HF Yes, each of us possesses a full set, but 1) others have tens of thousands of docs, 2) @rj_gallagher & others have searched freely

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 12, 2013

That's totally unsurprising, because unless you're in the cast of Scandal, it's impossible to believe Snowden wouldn't farm stolen sensitive documents out more, so as to increase his leverage. Over at Ars Technica, Cyrus Farivar writes that researchers like Jacob Appelbaum and journalists like Barton Gellman, Ryan Gallagher and others could have documents, too.

He doesn't qualify for whistleblower status

This is for a legal eagle far smarter than I, so this is an honest question: What would an amnesty look like, anyway, since Snowden is actually ineligible to be named a whistleblower?

To qualify as a whistleblower, Snowden must have disclosed information on illegal acts – but this is the NSA we're talking about, and everything was covered in the Patriot Act or by the FISA court. Whistleblower protection also only comes into play for non-contractors, which Snowden was while working at the NSA.

All this said, it doesn't help, either, that the NSA doesn't even know how many documents Snowden has in the first place. The olive branch feels very much like part and parcel of the reputation-repairing PR offensive Ledgett himself refers to. None of this portends well for Snowden being back in the U.S. in time for Christmas dinner.

       

Kim Jong-Un Executing His Uncle 'Reminded' John Kerry of Saddam

ABC

While most of the talk on the Sunday talk shows focused on Congress' bipartisan budget deal, Secretary of State John Kerry perhaps had the day's most telling quote when he compared North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un to Saddam Hussein. Appearing on ABC's This Week, Kerry said the news of Jong-Un's uncle's fate shows "how ruthless and reckless [Jong-Un] is," and recalls practices favored by the former Iraqi leader. Apparently Jong-Un has been busy this year. "It tells us a significant amount about the instability, internally, of the regime, with the numbers of executions," Kerry said. "This is not the first execution. There have been a significant number of executions taking place over the last months which we're aware of." What little intelligence the U.S. has on North Korea reminds Kerry of another major enemy of the state. "You saw the pictures of his uncle being arrested in front of everybody at this meeting. I mean it really reminded me of a video that we saw of Saddam Hussein doing the same thing, having people plucked out of an audience and people sitting there sweating and nobody daring to move or do anything," Kerry said. "To have a nuclear weapon, potentially, in the hands of somebody like Kim Jong Un just becomes even more unacceptable." Kerry also responded to Robert Levinson's reported CIA ties, while not confirming or denying anything. “There hasn't been progress in the sense that we don't have him back. But to suggest that we have abandoned him or anybody has abandoned him is simply incorrect and not helpful,” Kerry said. “I have personally raised the issue not only at the highest level that I have been involved with, but also through other intermediaries."

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Rep. Paul Ryan isn't mad at John Boehner after the Speaker of the House “just kind of got his Irish up” this week. If anything, Ryan is just as upset. “He was frustrated that these groups came out in opposition to our budget agreement before we reached a budget agreement.  I was frustrated, too,” said the Wisconsin Republican during a joint interview with Sen. Patty Murray, who co-authored the budget agreement with Ryan, on NBC's Meet the Press. Ryan thinks the criticism, however warranted, was misguided, especially coming from close allies. “But I think these are very important elements of our conservative family. I would prefer to keep those conversations within the family.”

But the real worry for the budget deal is in the Senate, where even the Democrats are worried about its chance of passing. Majority Whip Dick Durbin said Republican support will be necessary to pass the bill in the Democratically-controlled Senate. "The struggle is still on in the United States Senate. We'll need about eight Republicans to come our way," the Illinois Senator said on CBS's Face the Nation. "I feel we'll have a good, strong showing from the Democratic side. But we need bipartisan support to pass it." The biggest challenge, Durbin said, will be awmakers facing mid-term election fights against Tea Party candidates, while other have much longer ambitions. "A handful of members of the Senate are vying for the Presidency in years to come and thinking about this vote in that context," Durbin said. "And others are frankly afraid of this new force, the Tea Party force, the Heritage Foundation force that is threatening 7 out of 12 Republican Senators running for re-election."

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich thinks the budget deal is a work of some "brilliant politics" that will help the Republican party rebound in the wake of the shutdown "It’s clear that it didn’t work and, in that sense, they learned a lesson. I think this is mediocre policy and brilliant politics," Gingrich said on ABC's This Week, about the bipartisan budget deal. The deal does not push Republican economic policy forward, Gingrich says, but it does allow the party to focus on slagging Obamacare, something they failed to do during the shutdown. "It doesn’t get them what they want on policy terms, but it strips away the danger that people will notice anything but Obamacare. And the longer the country watches Obamacare, the more likely the Democrats are to lose the Senate." Like Ryan, Gingrich also excused Boehner's outburst at Tea Party groups who attacked the deal before it was ever released. "Later in my career, I blew up exactly like he did, and I think sometimes it’s healthy," he said. "He had worked very hard to get to this point. They were very battered by the shutdown and I think he just thought: 'Why not."

       

Remembering Peter O'Toole

AP

Peter O'Toole, a renowned and prolific Irish actor best known for his titular role in Lawrence of Arabia, has died after battling a long sickness. He was 81.

Just last year, O'Toole announced that he would retire from acting – he had contended with stomach cancer in the 1970s – but returned to play palace orator Cornelius Gallus in Katherine of Alexandria. It would prove to be the last performance of a lifetime filled with incredible ones, beginning with that famous biopic of T.E. Lawrence, and in the final tally earning him eight Oscar nominations for films like My Favorite Year, The Stunt Man, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

Though he never did win an Academy Award – he holds the record for most nominations without a victory – he was given an honorary award in 2003 for his career's worth of work.

In 2007, he told NPR about how he fell into the field.

I served with men who'd been blown up in the Atlantic, who'd seen their friends drinking icy bubbles in oil and being machine gunned in the water. And I mentioned that I wasn't particularly satisfied with what I was doing in civilian life, which was working for a newspaper. And the skipper said to me one night, have you any unanswered calls inside you that you don't understand or can't qualify? I said, well, yes, I do. I quite fancy myself either as a poet or an actor. He said, well, if you don't at least give it a try, you'll regret it for the rest of your life.

He was a consummate man of the theatre, known for his love of both the stage and the screen, his dignified Irish brogue giving crackling backbone to the sonnets of Shakespeare that he loved (and knew by heart). He also performed in at least nine Shakespearean plays to general acclaim, though he was famously panned for his 1980 Macbeth.

The man was also famously flamboyant, a raffish charmer who partied and drank with the best of them, including the late Richard Harris, who he counted as a close friend. Once you're done watching this adorable footage of O'Toole and Harris talking about rugby, check out this incredible entrance to his interview for The David Letterman Show in 1995.

The man also loved Ireland. In this paragraph that quite finely summarizes the man in his prime, part of a long Esquire feature penned by the great Gay Talese, he is flying home to Ireland where he sees something that quite catches his eye:

He threw his head back, finished his Scotch, then asked the stewardess for another. ... The plane was filled with businessmen and rosy-cheeked Irishwomen, and also a scattering of priests, one of whom held a cigarette in what seemed to be a long, thin pair of wire tweezers—presumably so he would not touch tobacco with fingers that would later hold the Sacrament.

O’Toole, unaware of the priest, smiled as the stewardess brought his drink. She was a floridly robust little blonde in a tight green tweed uniform.

“Oh, look at that ass,” O’Toole said softly, shaking his head, raising his eyes with approval. “That ass is covered with tweed made in Connnemara, where I was born…Nicest asses in the world, Ireland. Irish-women still are carrying water on their heads and carrying their husbands home from pubs, and such things are the greatest posture builders in the world.”

On Twitter, people remembered the man who filled those characters with the suaveness and the sublimity and the twinkling eyes that were all unmistakably O'Toole's:

In 2011, I asked Peter O'Toole if all his Oscar nominations were an honor. "No, it’s not. It’s a bore. I’m fed up." http://t.co/yACbNxwe5A

— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) December 15, 2013

Everyone's going to be talking "Lawrence of Arabia," but also check out O'Toole with Hepburn in "The Lion in Winter." Brilliant performance.

— Matt Ford (@HemlockMartinis) December 15, 2013

I fell in love with Peter O'Toole when I was 11. I ran smack into him in a stairwell. He lifted my chin and said, "Child, take a breath."

— Emily Dreyfuss (@EmilyDreyfuss) December 15, 2013

So sad to hear of the death of wonderful Peter O'Toole. One of the loveliest people I ever got to work with. I'll never forget his kindness

— Claudia Lander (@ClaudieReine) December 15, 2013

"The only exercise I take is walking behind the coffins of friends who took exercise." Rest in peace, Peter O'Toole. pic.twitter.com/aumhoaP89U

— Maria Haskins (@MariaHaskins) December 15, 2013

Peter O'Toole is dead. Let's hope he's raising merry hell with some old chums. That would quite a party. #peterotoole #rip

— Nick Jury (@TheRealNickJury) December 15, 2013

King. http://t.co/CPEbvo57NT

— Sean Fennessey (@sean_fennessey) December 15, 2013

       

Tamerlan Tsarnaev Allegedly Haunted by Voices

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, back left, and his older brother, Tamerlan, back right in sunglasses. (AP)

A five-month investigation by The Boston Globe has provided new insight into the history and character of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the brothers accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings in April this year, including suggestions that Tamerlan was dealing with mental illness.

The allegation was previously suggested in another major profile piece by Rolling Stone, but the Globe goes deeper into that proposition. Anna Nikaeva, a Chechen living in the Newton area, said that Zudeibat Tsarnaev, the family matriarch, didn't let herself see the possibility of her favourite Tamerlan's sickness. 

He had told his mother that he felt there were two people living inside of him. I told her, ‘You should get that checked out.’ But she just said, ‘No, he’s fine.’ She couldn’t accept the tiniest criticism of him. But obviously she was thinking about it enough that she brought it up.

Don Larking, a friend who went with Tamerlan to mosque, said that after they became close, Tamerlan confided about the voices in his head, suggesting that it was "majestic mind control":

'You can give a signal, a phrase or a gesture, and bring out the alternate personality and make them do things. Tamerlan thought someone might have done that to him.'

The person inside him, as Tamerlan described it to Larking, 'was someone who wanted to control him to make him do something.'

After Tamerlan returned to the U.S. after some time in his native Dagestan, Larking said he became more serious, and the last time he spoke about the voices, it was in fearful tones.

Tamerlan, a former boxer, was killed in a shootout in Watertown, and some called for his brain to undergo study to check for psychosis or trauma. The Globe says it appears that Tamerlan's family did not pursue treatment for him.

Other revelations from the remarkable long-read include:

A drug-dealing Dzhokhar should have flunked out of school, but did not.

Though the profile provides more vivid background on his older brother, it does shed light into the kind of person Dzhokhar was – a charmer who was able to get himself out of tough situations. Though anointed the "brains" of the family, he did not enjoy nearly as much support as his older brother in his wrestling or even academic pursuits. He was a standout wrestler, but his coach said he didn't see a family member once in three years; when he graduated from the Community Charter Schools of Cambridge school, only the family's landlady attended.  

While attending UMass Dartmouth, Dzhokhar would sacrifice his grades for a "robust" business selling marijuana in high volumes. In fact, the Globe found that in normal circumstances, he would have not been allowed to return for spring term this year due to the number of classes he failed:

Yet college officials, remarkably, authorized Jahar to sign up for the spring term of 2013. It is unclear who did so or why, but under normal college procedures someone would have had to lift the “hold” that is placed on files of failing students like Jahar and only after being convinced the student had “special” circumstances that argued for leniency.

An anonymous UMass professor said that this "probably only intensified his sense of intellectual superiority and invulnerability."

Tamerlan's Dagestan trip may have been prompted by the possible murder of his friend.

The link is tenuous and the newspaper doesn't quite make the leap, but notes that Tamerlan did not attend the wake or funeral of his close friend Brendan Mess, who with two other friends were brutally slain. His friends were "puzzled" by Tamerlan's reaction, who said that Mess had "gotten in with some bad people." Not long after that, Tamerlan left for Dagestan, a trip that many allege took him irrevocably down the radical route. 

The Tsarnaev patriarch, Anzor, may have lied about a history of persecution to get into the United States.

Anzor, who now lives in Dagestan, has said that he was the victim of persecution in Kyrgyzstan and that was why the family sought refuge in the U.S., which the Globe debates. Experts say there was no such persecution for Chechens at the time the family lived in Kyrgyzstan, certainly nothing that would require asylum; a family friend even alleges that “he made that up … so that the Americans would give him a visa.” 

Anzor did suffer from screaming fits and possible PTSD, which lends credence to this suggestion from a former co-worker of his now ex-wife Zubeidat:

Zubeidat told her that Anzor had “tried to prosecute” some members of the Russian mob involved in an illegal trading venture. “When the case was over, the mob came and took Anzor for one week and tortured him so severely that he almost died. When they were done they dumped him out of their truck in the middle of nowhere,” said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Zubeidat went to the hospital and when she saw how horribly beaten he was she said that she realized they had to get out of the country,” the associate said.

The mob, according to this account, took one macabre, parting shot. Before Anzor could leave the hospital, someone took the family’s German shepherd, cut off its head, and deposited it on the Tsarnaevs’ doorstep.

The entire Boston Globe story is a beautiful work of journalism and design, and deserves your full attention. If you have the time, please head to the Globe website and give this work your full attention. 

       

Kim Jong-Un's Aunt Doing Just Fine, Thank You

Kim Kyong-Hui, at front in black, appears safe after this week's purging of her husband in North Korea by her nephew, Kim Jong-Un. (AP)

Not only is Kim Jong-Un's aunt not dead – a fate that befell her husband, Jang Sung-taek, who was executed as a traitor this week in North Korea – she's earned herself something of a promotion.

Kim Kyong-Hui, 67, is a secretary in the workers' party and a four-star general in the people's army. She was also just named to a state committee to organize a funeral for an official who died, showing that she is still held in regard by her nephew.

This is not in itself surprising, as she is the sister of Kim's father, Kim Jong-Il, and therefore has a direct claim to the bloodline. That claim — and the wild mythology that stokes it (did you know Kim Jong-Il hit 11 holes-in-one in his first round of golf then retired from the sport?) — is seen as being key to maintaining power in an impoverished nation. She is expected to attend the two-year anniversary of her brother's death on Tuesday unless reported health concerns prevent her from doing so. 

It is worth noting that, according to Foreign Policy, all but three of the seven who walked with Kim Jong-Il's hearse in a photo of the funeral have been removed from power.

It has also been suggested that Kim Kyong-Hui
    

SNL MVP: All I Want for Christmas Is a Selfie with Angela Merkel

NBC

A ghost from Saturday Night Live's past returned this week to help get the show back on track after a mid-season lullaby. 

John Goodman was back hosting SNL for the first time since 2001, and while The Blues Brothers aren't exactly in fashion anymore, it didn't keep him from getting his blues on in the monologue with Kenan Thompson. And just because Linda Tripp hasn't been in the news in almost 15 years didn't mean Goodman couldn't dress up as a lady and wring laughs out of being the world's homeliest woman. And just because Goodman isn't in the movie Grudge Match doesn't mean he can't bring Robert De Niro and Sylvester Stallone on for a Three Wise Guys sketch that could have been written at any point in the past twelve years or beyond. Goodman is an actor who often seems too good for the material he's given, and for much of this week's episode, that was the case. He played the straight man for Shallon's classroom antics and took second billing to the Christmas whistle and Taran Killam's orange H&M pants (though, real talk for a second: that H&M digital short was on point) and Aidy Bryant's desperately cheerful snowflake-dance faces. Maybe it fits Goodman's current status as Hollywood's most valuable character actor that he was enhancement talent this week.

At least he got to play Drunk Uncle's drunker uncle.

1st Runner-Up: Kenan Thompson

It wasn't Garrett Morris providing news for the hearing impaired, but Thompson's take on the sign-language interpreter at Mandela's memorial kicked off another strong turn for the cast's elder statesman this season. Thompson was everywhere in this episode, and usually close by was Goodman, who had a certain chemistry with Thompson's judge. But the Black Santa ("Here's a Christmas Secret, I'm black as hell.") was his gift to the world, and we can only thank him for delivering the truth.

2nd Runner-Up: Bobby Moynihan

The saying goes that you'll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Speaking of Guy Fieri, Bobby Moynihan delivered a killer impersonation for Guy Fieri's Christmas Special, proving you can also never go broke bagging on Guy Fieri. He also gets a good number of bonus points for playing all the Pawn Stars in that same sketch. The slurry return of Drunk Uncle was what really put Moynihan over the top. How does he make that man so simultaneously loathsome and pathetically endearing? The man honestly seems conflicted about how we may well never be royals.

SNL MVP: Kate McKinnnon

MacKinnon's delightful Angela Merkel impression and a "Last Call" sketch in the same show? Why, last night was a Christmas miracle! When McKinnon appeared next to Pharoah's Obama during the cold open, it was like watching cool breeze sweep across a room, tossing everything into the air. This week's best sketch, though, was the return of everyone's favorite after-hours lover, finding a new victim in John Goodman to kiss and rub all over the bar as Kenan tries to shut down for the evening. Whipped cream romance hasn't been this sexy sinceVarsity Blues.

       

How Netflix Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love The Binge

No one gets in the way of Frank Underwood and his ribs. (SCREEN CAPTURE/NETFLIX)

Binge is not a particularly positive word – binge eating and binge drinking come to mind as just a few poor applications of the term. But with a new survey, Netflix is embracing what everybody sort of knew, deep-down: binge-watching is A-OK.

Because guilt and stress be damned: According to a new survey by Harris Interactive, 61 percent of users say they binge watch regularly, where the term is defined as two to three episodes of a single TV series in one setting. On top that, 73 percent see binge watching as a positive thing. The Wall Street Journal said that many are still tweeting about their binge-watching, sheepish on this social media walk of shame.

Despite the term's ubiquity, Netflix brass sort of hated when people talking about "binge-watching" a show, but they recently surrendered. "We've never been able to come up with a better euphemism," Netflix spokesman Jonathan Friedland told Journal.

And do you watch alone? Well, FOMO no mo'! Thirty-eight percent of those surveyed said they binge-watched by themselves, though they said 51 percent would have rather had someone else there with them. Seventy-nine percent say binge-watching actually makes the show better.

That's an especially easy statement to make since Netflix stock has enjoyed its biggest year ever on the heels of three original series loosed to the world all at once: House of Cards, Orange Is The New Black, and the fourth season of Arrested Development.

So celebrate the results of this lifestyle-affirming survey this weekend by breaking out the sweatpants and rewatching all two seasons of Sherlock, which airs new episodes on BBC on New Year's Day (Jan. 19 on PBS) and just came out with a trailer, in case anticipation wasn't already high enough.