Q: How should you draw Barack Obama?

A. With a prominent chin, and oversized ears that stick out. Toothy. He can be brown. He shouldn't look like Howard Dean. He doesn't have a mustache. [The Root]

Q. What should Barack Obama wear on his lapel?

A. Something hope-y. Or something funny. Or: "If he was honest, Obama would wear a turban and be done with it." [NYT]

Q. If we elect Barack Obama will there be no more racism?

A. Come on. [The Root]

Q. How many times a day does Barack Obama go to the gym?

A. 3. [ABC]

Q. Does Barack Obama sweat, like the humans?

A. No. [AP]

Q. Which Will Smith film performance best provides an unintentional and quite insulting gloss on the early life of Barack Obama?

A. His part as a gay hustler pretending to be the son of Sidney Poitier in John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation.

Either that or his part in I, Robot as a cop who doesn't play by the rules and hates robots.

Q. Why won't Barack Obama cuddle with me?

A. He needs his space. [Slate]

Pacific Coast News reports: "Heidi and her newest BFF, Meghan McCain, were spotted lunching at Ivy on the Shore in Santa Monica today. Just the intimate two of them."

Then they didn't have any cash for the valet so the paparazzi had to give them some. That's change you can believe in.

The Big Fuss The secret—the the thing that has so many literal-minded idiots terrified at things like that New Yorker cover—is simple: you don't need to mock the man, you can mock the aura surrounding him. Barack's messianic tendencies have been greatly exaggerated but there's no topping that Rolling Stone cover with the halo. So when The Onion put Obama on the cover of Tiger Beat, it was funny because it was an absurd exaggeration of the truth (see how that works?).

Filth & Fury Plus Obama's strongest supporters are showing themselves to be severely humorless, and that's funny! The gradual shift from constant outrage over matters that probably justify outrage—the mood of the Bush years—to this new era of outrage-for-the-sake of outrage is a scary omen for the future of liberalism in this country and also a great punchline.

Dos and Don'ts

Don't: Try to cleverly call him effete. Looking at you, Maureen! The guy dresses nice, sometimes, but he doesn't actually have those effeminate signifiers that everyone seems to think other male Democratic politicians possess. So stop fucking calling him "Butterfly" because that makes no sense.

Do: Call him "elite!" It's funny because he represents an aspirational black middle class and so we have to put him and his wife back in their place! Haha no, seriously, it's funny because making fun of Harvard is funny. Don't make latte jokes though, it's not 1997.

Don't: Make fun of his funny name. It's painful when Slate does it, yes, but even the reliable Daily Show writers fall into the trap. "Baracknophobia" is not the level of punmanship we've come to expect from you guys. It is funny to call him "Barry," though.

Do: Make fun of how people are terrified of his funny name and his foreign background. When faced with polls that suggest Americans do truly believe that Barack Obama was raised by The Iron Sheikh and spent his school years snorting the remains of 9/11 victims, all you can do is laugh and contemplate a life a sea.

Special Cases: Black comedians. Can they make fun of Barack Obama? Sure! But other black people will get even angrier about it, depending on the material and the audience. Of course, you knew that already.

Note to Cartoonists: Yes, his ears stick out. Good work catching that one.

In Short: Yes, so far, there is nothing "buffoonish" about Barack Obama. And that is a good thing, for people who enjoy laughing at things that are actually funny! But please, please, please, white people—don't whine about not being allowed to make fun of him because everyone will get mad at you. Just think about it for a minute! If your joke is funny, make it! If it is not funny, make one (1) different joke.

[Note: We forgot the credit the illustrator! Lukas Ketner drew this for Willamette Week.]

America loves ponies!

He claims, like the anti-change Rethuglican that he is, that the cover is not even a satire of The Obamas, but rather a comment on "the prejudice and dark imaginings about Barack Obama's—both Obamas'—past, and their politics." That sounds like the sort of "nuance" that a responsible editor would know never to attempt! Why can't you be more like Rolling Stone, David, and only feature angelic photos of Barry as Jesus Christ?

This is saying a particular thing at a particular time, when these imaginings and dark fantasies and misconceptions about Obama exist. And we're putting it all together in one image and holding a mirror up to it and showing it for it for the absurdity that it is.

We look forward to this new era of political cartooning, when images must reflect precisely what the creator means without use of exaggeration or satire. Maybe the Mallard Filmore guy should do their next issue?

So far perhaps the funniest unintended consequence of this irritating flap is that culture warrior conservatives are suddenly happily defending the goddamn New Yorker of all things!

We hope the Great New Yorker Joke-Explaining Tour lasts for the rest of this godforsaken month, as there's very little else happening in the news.

Michelle Obama went to high school with the Reverend's oldest child, Santita Jackson. So young Michelle was a "frequent" Jackson family house guest. In fact: "Michelle and Santita kind of babysat for Junior and Yusef and Jonathan [the third Jackson son] and oversaw the kids when the parents were gone," an old Jackson family advisor told TNR.

And it gets a little complicated here. Michelle is an old Jackson family friend. Junior has been campaigning for Obama—campaigning hard. But Yusef is BFF with supermarket mogul Ron Burkle, who is BFF with Bill Clinton, so Yusef raised money for Hillary. Yusef also—with Burkle—owns Radar!

Now that Clinton's out of the race, all the Jacksons are ostensibly behind Obama. Though Jesse Sr is obviously a bit ambivalent.

BUT it's worth noting (Nick is gone today so we're putting on our Denton Caps as we throw this out there) that not only has Radar not, in any of its forms, covered this recent Jackson scandal, it's also been very kind to Michelle Obama (this is the sum total of their coverage of her "first time in my adult life, I'm really proud of my country" remark). Of course, we've been pretty kind to her too, because we think she's pretty awesome. But still! She didn't go to grammar school with the older sister of our secret owner! TRANSPARENCY!

Fox has a fantastic story and gets to mock Jesse Jackson, and Barack Obama finds the spectre of "militant," scary-to-whites black people distancing themselves from him without him having to sell anyone out! Seriously, will the white people who watch Fox News think, upon hearing this tape, that they are forced to side with Jesse Jackson? Will Bill argue that Obama has sold out the black community by calling for more personal responsibility and less reliance on the government, which seems to be what Jackson thinks?

Or will everyone just pile on Jesse, like always, and help Barry win over those blue-collar whites Chris Matthews thinks are so important?

WAS THIS WHOLE THING ENGINEERED?

This was not Obama's regular campaign plane, which is being overhauled. It was a loaner, having previously been used by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY.

How convenient! Anyway, look for our exciting theories on how exactly Hillary almost pull this off in our new screenplay, Prematurely Inflated Escape Slide on a Plane.

In 2004, he was behind the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," a group that claimed that not only was John Kerry not a war hero, but in fact he had never even been to Vietnam, or even on a boat, as boats made him seasick, because he is French. He actually spent the majority of the 60s and 70s making love to Jane Fonda on a burning American flag.

Now John Kerry did not really respond to these claims very effectively or quickly, but part of that was surely because he did not expect these sort of goofy attack ads to suddenly become serious topics of impassioned debate on the television, giving them exposure far beyond what Mr. Pickens actually paid for.

And the Times reported recently that Pickens is welshing on a million dollar bet he offered to anyone who could disprove the claims of the Swift Boat people. The Times also said: "Extensive media accounts undermined the Swift Boat charges in 2004, pointing out that some of the Swift Boat critics had written statements during Vietnam lauding Mr. Kerry for extraordinary bravery in the incidents they later said he made up." MediaMatters is upset (su-prise, su-prise, su-prise! Charles Durning as T. Boone Pickens might say here) because the extensive undermining thing did not really happen until well after most media outlets simply repeated all the claims without context, 500,000 times. Though to be fair, the Times largely ignored the Swift Boat people, because they, like Kerry, thought they were so ridiculous, so it was more of a sin of omission.

But one man who did publicly criticize and refute the claims of this terrible group of liars is American Hero John McCain! He fought in Vietnam too, you may remember, so he is pretty confident that it actually happened and John Kerry was there.

Now, though, McCain is happily accepting money from the people who funded these terrible lies he denounced in 2004. Because he's a MAVERICK. McCain also brought out Swift Boat member Bud Day for a conference call on Monday. Day was there to respond to the terrible lies Wesley Clark made about McCain's war service, because irony is dead.

But here is some good news: T. Boone Pickens, as a proper old-fashioned evil Texas oil billionaire, still quietly hates John McCain and will not be donating any money to anyone this year.

Oh, hey—would it be inappropriate to note that this thing looks a lot like that thing?

The Clinton machine only exaggerated this problem. Mrs Clinton surrounded herself with familiar faces from her White House years—people like Mark Penn, her chief strategist, Terry McAuliffe, her chief fund-raiser, Howard Wolfson (one of the least helpful spokesmen this newspaper has ever encountered) and, of course, her husband.

Ouch. That is really not like them!

So now it can be told: the entire newsmedia turned against Hillary Clinton because they could not stand dealing with her communications director. Amusingly they also all hated her chief adviser Harold Ickes AND her chief strageist (slash pollster!) Mark Penn. But for some reason poor dumb Wolfson is the one they're all beating up on. Because Penn and Ickes give better quote, probably? Which is another reason Howard was a terrible flack. Sigh.

Let a thousand buck-passing stories of how the disintegration of the Clinton campaign was the fault of her coterie of incompetent aides bloom!

Aaron Sorkin admits that he cribbed this speech from an anonymous e-mail forward; using archaic laws about mildew and dietary restrictions to discredit the Bible as a source of guidance is an old strategy thoroughly worked over by apologists and skeptics. Dobson has not-altogether-ludicrous defenses of why the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality still applies, and why unborn babies are still babies with a right to life.

But to those of us who don't believe the Bible, digging up weird Old Testament laws makes a damn fun argument. It's just a little too bold to make when you're courting a majority of the American population.

So could Obama be forced to talk about this? Could he give a speech on religion that would rival his speech on race? Or will he avoid admitting that his brand of Christianity is still a little too liberal for most of America?

Whether or not it's a symbol of the decline of political discourse, the debate certainly is a pain in the ass to follow. The Personal Democracy Forum, which organized the debate, encourages people to follow by watching a list of search results (which feels like any comment thread full of self-important randoms) or watching this page combining the Twitter feeds of Cox and the two debaters.

So! I'm not entirely convinced that anyone should care — when choosing a president anyway — that John McCain called his wife a cunt. But then again I'm not convinced anyone should care that Obama's pastor said "God damn America," yet that got loads of media play. Is it actually a decent public service, or at least a clever political/entertaining tactic, to bring up this sixteen-year-old outburst after TV media ignore it?

During the primary campaign, Mr. Obama was sharply critical of the company. He has said he will not shop there and that Wal-Mart should pay "a living wage."

At a January debate, Mr. Obama seemed to play to Wal-Mart's critics when he suggested that Senator Clinton's six-year stint on the company's board paled in comparison to his record as a community organizer in Chicago. "While I was working on those streets watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart," Mr. Obama said, in one of his sharpest jabs at Mrs. Clinton.

That reporting comes from the Sun, by the way, New York's least-favorite conservative daily newspaper. They are thrilled by this appointment, as an editorial reveals: "Senator Obama's choice of the left's most prominent defender of Wal-Mart, Jason Furman, as his campaign's economic policy director is a sign of hope for the Democrat of Illinois."

Well, we're glad they're happy.

At a gathering of Democratic activists last week, the author, one-time liberal radio show host and former star of the late-night sketch comedy program "Saturday Night Live" swapped quips with supporters — after ensuring a reporter would not write them down.

Voters do hate humor. It's been proven by science! And by science we mean various speculative posts we've written on John McCain and others.

Of course the Minnesota/Rest-of-nation divide is mirrored by the Minneapolis/rest-of-state divide so Franken will really have to up the pandering quite a bit and probably eliminate all non-Readers Digest-approved humor from his repertoire if we wants to take back the state.

The saddest thing here is that we much prefer Al Franken the humorist (back when he was funny!) to Al Franken the Clintonian moderate-Dem politician. But whatever, if we never have to see Norm Coleman's capped shit-eating grin again we won't begrudge Al the seat.

In Franken's Senate Run, Jokes Are Off the Record [Reuters]

The standard cultural arbiter of what Real Americans do and what they are like is someone like Chris Matthews. He's a loud, brash Irish Catholic guy, getting up there in age, with an admittedly solid blue-collar history (former DC cop!) who's been in a bubble of wealth and privilege just long enough to make him utterly deluded about the people in this country who live outside the wealthiest enclaves of the Eastern Seaboard. Over the last decade or so, he's come to decide that Real Americans are, basically, Nixon's "silent majority"—aging white men of modest means. Sadly he barely even understands what these modern-day Angry White Men are like, so he's extrapolating from his own time in their circle, decades ago. This is why he is pretty sure he knows that Real Americans drink like this, and hey, no one plays pool anymore!

But let's look at Obama's famous "body man," Reggie Love. The kid introduced the candidate to Jay-Z, popularizer of the shoulder-brushing phenomenon. He's a black kid, from North Carolina. The standard analysis would be that a kid like this will TERRIFY THE VOTERS. But the guy's a former athlete who went to Duke on scholarship. At Duke, he partied with white frat kids—all of whom almost certainly listen, maybe exclusively, to hip hop and R&B.

These are kids (meaning "18-35-year-olds across the entire nation), white and black, for whom respect knuckles are second nature. And Obama's bump and shoulder-brush, probably simply because he's such a natural actor, don't reek of pandering. Pandering is when, say, Representative Jack Kingston inexplicably and incorrectly appropriated "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp."

Obama's acting cool, but relatably cool. Like a Cool Uncle! He's younger and hipper than dad, but still serious and Grown Up. And this is probably his best defense against crazy old Grampa McCain.

(And lest anyone accuse us hero-worship, we did think it was totally cool when Hillary downed that boilermaker. If the old rumor of her drinking contest with McCain is true, that is ALSO cool. But absolutely nothing else about her is cool, in any way.)

The Clinton campaign ordered 70 boxes of Domino's pizza for the press corps, and set up a cash bar for its fundraisers, or "honored guests." The honored guests were not in a partying mood, however. One older woman pointed at a reporter accusingly and said: "He is the one who destroyed our heroine!"

Oh man. We have to guess that the reporter accused of DESTROYING OUR HEROINE was probably Milbank himself.

Also on hand for some heroine-destruction was the Observer's Choire Sicha!

Outside, a crowd gathered to watch her motorcade leave, at the corner of Third Avenue and 23rd Street.

Two Obama supporters were there with signs. One read "Unite For A Change." The other read "Drop Out Now."

"What do you think man, you feeling it?" one of the white Obama supporters asked a black man who was considering their proposal.

The man didn't answer for a while. Then: "All of a sudden you're all right?" he asked. "You're pulling my nuts out all year."

"Politics are dirty," said the Obama supporter.

"You rob me and treat me to lunch—that make you all right?" said the black man. He was in a panama hat and salmon-colored summer pants and shirt. "Fuck that," he said. "Get the fuck out of here."

Indeed. Radar's Neel Shah noted the important details:

($4 got you a Coors Light; for $5 you had your choice of Heineken, Corona, Amstel Light, or a plastic cup full of Merlot, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, or Cabernet Sauvignon. Said the bartender: "The Cab has been our best-seller.")

Elitists! Don't they know that to be true to the Real American blue-collar roots of their candidate they should've all had $2 boilermakers? Or just chugged some Kentucky Gentleman straight from the bottle?

The Times has two stories that have clearly been in the pipe for weeks now: what will he do about Hillary and OMG Black President! Also: note the placement of the Zimbabwe story, and chuckle to yourself as you recall when Hillary compared Obama to Robert Mugabe.

The New York Daily News admirably tries to explain that Obama is a "historic" candidate, but in tabloid terms "HISTORY!" generally means "loser."

The New York Post celebrates Barack Obama's victory by turning its logo a hideous shade of neon green. The color is too distracting for us to note anything else about this front page.

Haha kudos to the Wall Street Journal for just throwing the word "bitter" in there. They should've gone all out and just written "God damns America as Obama clinches nomination."

AM New York doesn't even care about the candidate, just the poor sad loser.

EL GANADOR!

Kudos to the Sun for making sure crazy old man McCain gets some attention today too!

"Keep up with Breaking History"?? Does "history" really "break"?

"What does Hillary want?" Also: the correct collective noun for superdelegates is "a pile."

Analysis: election to hinge on how McCain has experience and age.

And in USA Today, wacky photo placement has ol' Hillary Clinton smiling down on the Obama's from Heaven. Get her, she's givin out wings!

Taiwan's United Evening News. If American newspapers were laid out like this, print might not be dying. The Manga speech bubbles! What does it mean?

Finally — from El Pais in Uruguay (not the Spanish one) comes our favorite headline/photo combination: "El primer candidato negro." With accompanying photo of the mysterious all-black silhouette that just may be our next commander in chief.

October 2006: The Inevitable Hillary Avalanche Begins Rolling Down the Mountain of Victory Former Virginia Governor and, for a brief time, the Democratic Party's Great White Hope Mark Warner dropped out of the race before it even began. At the time, rumors of a sex scandal briefly percolated, though he might've just had his hopes dashed by that notoriously terrible Times Magazine cover.

Guess what that meant! Hillary Clinton was now pretty much the "inevitable" nominee. But! "With Sen. Clinton likely to have the endorsement of most of the party liberal bigwigs, labor unions and activists, the expectation has been that one other Democrat will emerge as the anti-Hillary candidate in the presidential primaries." Another but! "Of course, politics abhors a vacuum, and someone will become the anti-Hillary candidate in the primaries. But given a lack of other Southern Democrats of Warner's stature, it is unlikely that candidate will have his potential to change the electoral map."

Also in that October (a year-and-a-half ago! Christ!), Senator Barack Obama said he'd consider a run for the presidency. Conventional wisdom was still divided on whether he was dumb enough to go through with it, but he was now the official anti-Hillary.

And in that same October the first Clinton-related OUTRAGE happened, with Elizabeth Edwards saying she'd had a happier life than Hillary Clinton, code for "better husband" and also "I am not a cuthroat ambitious bitch." At least that's how the Clintons spun it.

December 2006: Which Well-Spoken Fellows Will Decide to Lose To Hillary This Year? Obama's not-quite-campaign was the focus of much speculation. In a Tribune interview, Obama amusingly said that any match-up between him and McCain would be spun as "War hero against snot-nosed rookie." Little did he know it would be spun as "crazy old coot versus secret Muslim!"

It basically went on like that for another couple months—Clinton was still the inevitable candidate, John Edwards was someone you might have to watch out for in Iowa, and Obama was the anti-Hillary (unspoken: he'd end up like Howard Dean).

2007: Still Ridin' the Hillary Express, Next Stop The White House, Again Hillary was still inevitable, according to analyses linked by such guardians of blog conventional wisdom as Andrew Sullivan and Matt Yglesias. She had passionate reservoirs of support. The only people who didn't like her were the internet people who wanted Edwards or Richardson or maybe Obama (once again, shades of 2004 and Howard Dean).

Summer '07: Follow the Money! It Leads, For Some Reason, to Someone Other Than That Inevitable Gal! Then, in July of 2007, something odd happened! "Obama's money puts Clinton's 'inevitable' nomination in doubt" was how CNN put it. Obama's fundraising beat Clinton's throughout the "invisible primary" (the money race the year before any voting). BUT! "Howard Dean won the invisible primary in 2003, but was effectively finished a few weeks later after he came in third in Iowa." Silly internet candidates! Hill's inevitability was now "in doubt", but only pretend doubt.

But Obama kept raising more money, and gaining in the polls in Iowa, and then Hil "stumbled" in the October '07 debate.

Iowa: Hillary Loses Her First Thing Ever Then Obama won in Iowa and suddenly idiots were saying he was inevitable, especially since Clinton came in a miserable third place and surely Obama would go on to sweep New Hampshire.

Why Don't You Cry About It?

The inevitability argument didn't work! So Hillary moved on to "experienced" and also "human." Yes, she is human. She proved this with crying, which led to a lot of fairly offensive commentary and also a stunning New Hampshire victory that wasn't stunning because everyone had predicted it until Obama caught them off guard in Iowa. Then it was an open race! Where "open" means "between two people."

Then there was "I'm your girl" and the comeback narrative and things were swinging back toward Hillary's superior campaign machine and experience and Obama-as-Dean.

Well, That Scary Black Fellow Won Something Once Too, You Know

Obama came in second a couple more times in unimportant states, but then destroyed Hillary in South Carolina—Bill said something about Jesse Jackson and suddenly the campaign was about race! That was perhaps the strongest whiff so far of the "Hillary DESPERATE" narrative.

The Super Friends! But February's Super Duper Tuesday was supposed to end the campaign! For good! Specifically California and New York! It did no such thing. Obama "won" more states, but Clinton seemed to hold on to a delegate lead.

Wait, There's Math Involved? Except! Obama's campaign then did one of the smartest things they've ever done: they told every news outlet that, using "math," they calculated that they had more delegates than Clinton. And it turned out they probably did! This ended up on Drudge and has remained true ever since.

Oh My God Remember When Texas and Ohio Were Supposed to Finally End This Fucking Death March? When Hillary "won" Texas and Ohio a month later, the cable news chatterers all duly scored it in her column, but the next day's stories all pointed out once again that that nasty Obama delegate lead wouldn't go away.

It's Been Over For a Month-and-a-Half But It Would be Sexist to Tell Her On March 4, 2008, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter came out and said, explicitly, that Hillary could "win" every state yet to vote and she'd still never beat Obama's delegate lead. This was the official start of the "Hillary can't win, at all, and she's just in it for [insert conspiracy theory here]" narrative. The best the Clinton campaign could do to fight off that story was to try to woo superdelegates (underhanded! shadowy party bosses subverting democracy!) and try to make Obama melt down (Republican tactics! tearing the party apart!).

SINCE APRIL: Bittergate, Reverend Wright, and Secret Muslim Rumors dogged Obama. West Virginia proved to be full of racists. Bill Clinton had a couple meltdowns. But the narrative was unmistakably shifted as May ended: Hillary was done. Now people just wanted to know why she kept campaigning. Finally, as June began, the Associated Press announced that Barack Obama had officially won the nomination.

Clinton still hasn't conceded, but Obama is expected to give his victory speech tonight regardless.

Then Bill Clinton is expected to shout something angry at anyone who will listen.

Here's the problem. The AP says: "Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said, effectively ending her bid to be the nation's first female president."

What they mean is: "Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede Tuesday night if Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said, effectively ending her bid to be the nation's first female president."

So the Clintons are clearly banking on a technicality (superdelegates don't have to vote until the convention!) and/or Obama coming up short (2,117, sorry!). Or they've lost touch with reality?

As the Thatcher era drew to a close in England, Murdoch switched his allegiance from John Major's Tories to the Labour party. Specifically to its rising star Tony Blair, a Clintonian centrist liberal who promised to remake and modernize (or modernise) his stagnant party. Murdoch's papers endorsed Blair in 1997, because Murdoch generally prefers backing winners to ideological purity. This tends to help with things like encouraging the government to let one crazy Australian own as many forms of media as possible. Of course, Blair spent some time courting Murdoch's support personally, surely flattering for the would-be kingmaker.

Murdoch even rewarded the former Prime Minister with a job offer! It was the least he could do for the despised Blair, who dragged his nation into Bush's war against everyone's will and consulted with Murdoch multiple times a year (often in secret) on government policy. Murdoch won important victories, getting Blair to reverse his opinion on the Euro and more. Though the BBC was not, sadly, destroyed.

In other words, Obama should watch out for Australians bearing gifts. Though Murdoch isn't yet as powerful in the US as he'd like to be, a couple years worth of regulatory changes could fix that. And maybe Rupe will finally get his long-overdue invitation to the White House.

(Also, Murdoch on Keith Olbermann, virilant critic of Fox: "I fired him 5 years ago," when he was on FoxSports. "He was crazy.")

Roger Stone! Republican political mastermind! Nixon acolyte and dirty tricks specialist! Creepy old perv who goes to swingers clubs! He is largely forbidden from meddling in national politics anymore, because he's an embarrassment, but he still manages to keep himself involved (often in name and by reputation only) in Florida doings and goings-on.

As always, take everything Roger Stone says with massive doses of salt. But he's right almost as often as he's full of shit, which is his only actual genius. Stone claims he has surveillance camera footage of Crist making out with a lady on an elevator. That's it. There's kissing and groping, between the governor and some biologically female human, captured on CCTV, and in Roger Stone's hands, for some reason. No one has seen it yet, as he is "saving it for the national shows."

We're not sure who the purported girlfriend is, but it may be Kelly Heyniger, the beard trotted out when Crist was running for governor. She is an actress who was in a "Hottest Mom in America" contest, once. And also on Fear Factor.

It's a bizarre story. Basically Crist is an ideal candidate because he'd lock up Florida for McCain but, you know, men keep claiming they've had sex with him.

(Yes, that is a photo of Crist with disgraced congressman Mark Foley.)

Report: Crist Circulating 'Make Out Tape' To Squash Gay Rumors [HuffPo]

He made direct, pointed criticisms of Bush's handling of the war that closely mirrored criticisms lobbed by liberals like Weisberg! What a maverick! Of course whether or not McCain genuinely believes this is immaterial because conveniently he only comes off so rebellious and principled and independent when he's sitting down for private chats with liberal journalists.

Remember how he told Arianna Huffington that he didn't vote for George W. Bush when he was hanging out with her at a fancy elitist Hollywood dinner party? And then, later, he wouldn't admit that anymore? Funny, that. Back to cozying up with the Christian Right and announcing that we'll win in Iraq no matter what the cost!

McCain at Rock Bottom [Slate]

Young, eager campaign aides are stock characters in movies and on television, but few have quite the élan of Mr. Love, who, at 6-foot-5, is about three inches taller than the tall candidate, fitter than the fit candidate (he can bench press more than 350 pounds) and cooler than the cool candidate.

"There's no doubt that Reggie is cooler than I am," Mr. Obama said, laughing, in a phone interview. "I am living vicariously through Reggie."

The Times basically runs this story (the candidate's shadow who makes sure he never has to make his own sandwiches ever again) every election season. As we read we tried to remember the name of John Kerry's guy but then they conveniently linked to the 2004 story. The New York Times is adapting to the digital age and making our "this story looks like that story" posts so much easier!

John Kerry's "body man" was Marvin Nicholson Jr, which is not as cool of a name as Reggie Love. But Nicholson was "a former bartender and golf caddie," which is almost as cool as former college football player. He spent most of his time making John Kerry peanut butter sandwiches and never introduced Kerry to Jay-Z, which is why John Kerry was such a lousy candidate.

The guy is Jeff Stier of The American Council on Science and Health. ACSH is a scientific health nonprofit sponsored in large part by the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, and much of their research is dedicated to proving that consumer products, drugs, and chemicals will not kill you. But tobacco companies don't sponsor them, so they tend to be pretty anti-smoking. Also, as de facto "scientific" representatives of big industry, they lean a bit conservative, politically.

Barack Obama is a smoker. Well, maybe a former smoker, but probably still a sometimes smoker. Because christ, no one is strong enough to make it through a presidential campaign without a cigarette here and there. Obama was up to half a pack a day at some point during his 26 years as a smoker. (Lightweight.) Though usually more like a quarter-pack a day. He also says he quit in February of 2007.

Stier would like you to know that while everyone is running around worried about how the 71-year-old cancer survivor might not be able to stand up to the stresses of the Oval Office, the 46-year-old maybe former smoker poses a much greater risk. Because he's smoked 55,000-70,000 cigarettes in his life! Stier never really uses his fancy medical math to say what Obama's precise risk factor is for stroke or heart problems, but it must be pretty bad, because that is a lot of cigarettes.

Go to Katz's: "Because Mr. Obama is relatively new on the national stage, his résumé of Senate votes in support of Israel is short, as is his list of high-profile visits to synagogues and delis."

Oh, nice work, Jodi Kantor. High-profile visits to delis. Obama's also neglected to make a high-profile visit to his psychiatrist, his popular music producer, or his jeweler. And it would kill him to make one high-profile call to his mother once in a while?

Anyway, the takeaway here is that old Jewish people are terrified of the Blacks, so they will all vote for John McCain, who will nuke anyone who is mean to Israel.

The thing is, Florida is full of these old Jewish people and also Latinos, so Obama has already crossed it off his map. He knows he stands no chance there (especially if McCain selects Governor Crist as his running mate), and he will make up for it in western states (theoretically). This is the year we probably don't need give a shit about Florida, thank god.

Many Florida Jews Express Doubts on Obama [NYT]