On C Street, in the townhouse owned by The Family, the famous secretive Christian cult. Other C street residents include [clarification: have included] John Ensign and Chip Pickering Jr., both of whom cheated on their wives. Governor Mark Sanford, who also cheated on his wife, sought moral counsel there.

The Family rents the townhouse out to male congressmen for below-market rates, and basically everyone who lives there is a creep and a degenerate.

The House of Representatives more or less proportionately represents the entire country equally. Its vast size provides a decent counterbalance to the extremism or incredible dumbness of a large number of its members. The Senate, meanwhile, provides a really easy and convenient way for industries to purchase political loyalty: you only need to buy a couple people off to completely stall anything at all. Hell, buy Joe Lieberman and you might kill health care altogether!

So. Drudge links to some very wishful thinking by the New York Post calling reform DOA in the Senate. Josh Marshall thinks its passage is more or less a foregone conclusion. Tim Noah thinks the Senate will maybe pass a terribly watered down version of reform.

Honestly the situation is exactly the same in the Senate as it was before the House vote. There are 50 liberals, 40 Republicans, and 10 assholes who are steering the entire process. Those 10 assholes represent a fraction of the populace. They want to make health care reform do less for fewer people because that is their working definition of "centrism." And they talk like this:

Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) conceded that movement across the Dome "builds momentum, which is helpful."

But Conrad, a deficit hawk who represents a conservative-leaning state, said Saturday night's vote would not pressure Democratic Senators into embracing specific policies within the House bill or speeding up a floor debate that could take several weeks and stretch into early next year.

"This is the Senate. ... There's no way I know of to move faster. Honestly ... I've never thought this thing would be done before December of this year, and I still wouldn't be shocked if it's not done in December," Conrad said Thursday afternoon. "I think people are very much directed by the constituencies that they represent. I represent North Dakota; I'm not affected by what some colleague in the House from California thinks, frankly."

Hah. Ha! 38 million people live in California. 640,000 people live in North Dakota. Do you know what the population of Nancy Pelosi's Congressional district is? It is 640,000.

Obviously it is not Kent Conrad's job to care, at all, what Nancy Pelosi's constituency thinks, except inasmuch as what they think might be what is best for the people of North Dakota as well. But, theoretically, in a representative democracy, Kent Conrad's constituency shouldn't have immensely more power than Nancy Pelosi's constituency, right?

But the Senate stands where it did before: Harry Reid's bill is being scored by the CBO, and when it is released, there will be a lot of really terrible columns and news stories about how long it is. When we are feeling optimistic, this is how we think it'll go down: the Dems need 60 votes to let it go to debate and 60 votes to end debate (in the event of a GOP filibuster—which we don't think is inevitable but it also seems idiotic to predict that they'd be adults about anything at this point) and then, maybe, hopefully, 50 Senators and Vice President Smilin' Joe Biden will vote for it and the assholes can save face by voting against it without making it actually fail. And then the Senate will have actually done something halfway decent and fairly monumental.

(Meanwhile the House passed a climate bill last June. Did you know this? Don't look for it to become law this year, though!)

There is already a scandal: Mets fan Rep. Eliot Engel wore a Yankees cap on the House floor last Friday! His spokesman had to note, to Roll Call, that the hat was only on his head for a little bit, and that Engel "hasn't switched allegiances" (he is not Spike Lee, people).

Then there is this:

But some Mets fans weren't buying into the Empire State rendition of "Kumbaya," politics be damned: Rep. Anthony Weiner (D) was notably absent from the list of sponsors of the resolution formally congratulating the Bronx Bombers. One might think Weiner, who is thought to have aspirations of being the Big Apple's mayor, would want to curry favor with the big chunk of its residents who root for the Pinstripes.

It seems, though, that Weiner's loyalty to the Mets runs even deeper than his political ambitions - even though he acknowledges that his team isn't in the same league as the Yanks. "I only follow double-A baseball," Weiner tells us. "I'm a Mets fan."

Oh, Anthony Weiner. You are such an annoying person, even though that was a very good Baseball Quip. It may seem counterintuitive for a man with mayoral aspirations to not root for the most successful and popular New York baseball franchise, but in 2013 this guy needs to win Queens, Brooklyn, and a New York City Democratic primary election. The Mets are his ticket to Gracie Mansion!

Heard on the Hill [Roll Call]

And then they lied about it to John Aravosis. (Sort of.) Which is just fucking stupid. It's one thing to not bother to support your gay constituency, it's another to insult them.

We're told OFA is organizing an effective health care lobbying campaign, but it still looks like the DNC is neutering OFA's progressive tendencies and OFA is still distracting the DNC from organizing for non-Obama-related local campaigns.

Sure, if you live in New Jersey or Virginia you might've thought the gubernatorial campaigns in those two states were mostly about taxes and jobs (and weight), but that is wrong. These were shadow reelection campaigns for Barack Obama, and he lost both of them, because he is a failure.

Republican Bob McDonnell won in Virginia by a huge margin against Democrat Creigh Deeds, who was a white, conservative Democrat from southern Virginia, thus ensuring that not a single member of the coalition that won VA for Obama in 2008 would turn out to vote.

In Jersey, Republican Chris Christie squeaked by incumbent Jon Corzine. Corzine's was the campaign Obama belatedly lent his support to, once Corzine's double-digit polling deficit shrank to a couple points. This campaign was entirely about property taxes, basically, and so a Republican who campaigned entirely on cutting proptery taxes won.

Once again, gubernatorial elections have almost nothing to do with national politics. They are not House and Senate races. Meanwhile, in the nation's only two House races yesterday, Democrats won. They won handily in a California race that no one paid attention to, because a safe Democratic seat staying Democratic is not as newsworthy as a safe Republican seat that almost went to a Republican until national movement conservatives freaked out and excommunicated Dede Scozzafava from the Church of Teabagging. And then a Democrat won in New York's 23rd. He won a seat that's been a gimme for Republicans since a 1992 redistricting. (Before it was redistricted, this area of the state has been Republican since the 19th century. In 2002 the Republican ran unopposed.)

Please keep in mind that Obama picked up a new Democratic vote in the House of Representatives while you read some analysis piece on how Obama has just been crushed, politically.

As we said before, the special election in New York's 23rd was the only race yesterday that had anything to do with national politics, because movement conservatives inserted themselves into the race and promptly lost. In what could easily actually be a preview of next year's midterms, teabaggers and the conservative Club for Growth and Sarah Palin all threw their support behind a candidate they found more acceptable than the Republican, and their guy lost. As activists from out of town flooded the district, shouting nonsense about ACORN and waving "Don't Tread on Me" flags, imagining they'd already won, the Democrat turned out the vote and rode to victory on the back of union support and the president's popularity in the region.

And look at that: unions and GOTV made the difference! Hell, some of that might've won New York for Bill Thompson, even without Obama's support!

Here is the real lesson about and for Obama, though, and it touches on every single race yesterday: in 2008, Obama borrowed Howard Dean's 50-state strategy for the Democrats—open and staff DNC offices in every state to organize and run campaigns at every level—and applied it to the presidential primaries and general elections. He raised a ridiculous amount of money and compiled an amazing email list and organized a huge number of volunteers and won the presidency.

After the election, Obama turned those campaign resources into Organizing For America, "a grassroots network wielding some 13 million email addresses to mobilize former volunteers on behalf of the administration's agenda." And then they folded it into the DNC and they didn't do anything with it for months. And then it turned out that this massive organization couldn't be utilized to do much besides fundraise and canvass, and furthermore its ties to the DNC and the White House mean it can't actually be used to push progressive causes, which are the causes that this massive volunteer army cares about.

This means, basically, that the DNC has neutered Obama's progressive volunteer army and that massive volunteer army has consumed the DNC. The whole operation is now a 2012 reelection campaign already in progress, and if you are a local Democrat looking for organizing and canvassing and fundraising support of the kind Howard Dean promised to create for you back when he was in charge, you are shit out of luck.

This is the most worrying indicator for 2010. They need to fix this.

House Dems decided, instead, to cute the price tag of the bill by expanding Medicaid, which pays providers way less than Medicare, but it is for urban poors. That is a much bigger, but obviously much less important constituency than Real Americans in Small Towns and so on.

So it is good to Cut Down on Government Spending except, obviously, when the Government is Spending Money deserving, hard-working folks in Coors ads and so on.

It has been a depressing primary season, full of uninspiring hacks! Many candidates are people who thought they would be term limited out of their city council jobs, and then they were not, but it was too late to not run for whatever they decided to run for. The Democrats basically conceded the Mayoral race, even though this is basically a wonderful time to be running against an out-of-touch billionaire. (Sigh.) So we understand that it is not very exciting, but you should still probably go to your local middle school or whatever and vote. Because if you don't, Liberty will disappear! Check out this awesome animated gif from the Board of Elections website!

As for who to vote for? Christ, who knows.

Comptroller

This is a very important job! This person takes care of the city budget. The Working Families Party has endorsed John Liu, who seems fine, whatever, but he said he worked in a sweatshop when he was a child and that turned out to be made-up, and who the fuck makes that up?

New York Tumblrers have endorsed Melinda Katz, who has the best commercials, but she has taken more money from scumbag developers than anyone else, and that is lame. Also she was a Clinton delegate but she claimed she voted for Obama in the primaries until someone was like "what?" and she was like "nevermind." WTF, Melinda?

The Times endorsed David Yassky. He is the only candidate from Brooklyn and not Queens! He has complained about the G train! But RFK Jr. and Chuck Schumer also endorsed him, for what that is worth.

So, hell, this one's up to you.

Public Advocate

This is like the shadow-mayor, or something. This person's job is to annoy Michael Bloomberg—and on that count, Betsy Gotbaum has been a failure. So there is Mark Green, who was very good at bothering Giuliani, but he has just been hanging out on TV doing nothing ever since he was not allowed to be Mayor, before 9/11. There is Bill de Blasio, who won the Times endorsement. But is he too close to corrupt unions? And the Working Families Party, which is having some issues with their accounting, at the moment? There is Eric Gioia, who is some punk kid. How about Normal Siegel? He is the former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union and he is basically a pretty good guy. He receives the coveted Gawker Endorsement.

Manhattan District Attorney

Billion-year-old zombie DA Robert Morgenthau decided Cy Vance Jr. should be the next Manhattan DA, and that is a good reason not to support Cy Vance Jr. Leslie Crocker Snyder has always been a little too zealously "lock 'em all up" for our bleeding heart, and she used to enjoy killing people a little too much. Richard Aborn, the third candidate, will not win. In this race, Gawker endorses moving to Brooklyn.

City Council

Just indiscriminately vote against any and all incumbents.

If you live in City Council Distict 33, why not vote for Steve Levin? When he attended Brown, he played drums with MGMT! How awesome is that! (Or vote for Evan Thies who is less entangled in the filthy DEMOCRATIC MACHINE.)

Here, from Roll Call, are two paragraphs that usefully sum up the important differences between the way Democrats and Republicans run Congress:

During the 110th Congress, Republicans were occasionally able to employ procedural tactics to trip up debate or force Democrats to pull legislation from the floor.

Over the two-year period, Republicans were able to use procedural tactics to pass legislative alternatives 25 times. By contrast, Democrats were only able to pass 14 such motions in the 12 years while they were in the minority.

Yes, well. There are more differences along these lines. When Republicans were in the majority in Congress, their whip and eventual majority leader was nicknamed The Hammer. Democrats have the nicknameless Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn. (But one thing that congressional Democrats and Republicans have in common is that both allow their most conservative members to dominate debate and legislation.)

The Daily News broke the news on the front page today, which is funny, because they keep reporting on that assault thing and calling him names like "traitor." But apparently Monserrate is losing his mind, or something, because of all the stress from his upcoming trial. Being a mercurial violent asshole narcissist is almost as exhausting as "legislating" or whatever he is supposed to do!

Here is your Daily News sports columnist, Mike Lupica, calling Monserrate and Espada various names, on the occasion of their trip to a baseball game.

Anyway. Remember how the Democrats said the GOP takeover was illegal and so they took them to court? The Judge hearing the case basically refuses to decide anything, still.

"As a matter of public policy, you guys should work this out so I'm directing you to go across the street and do that and report back to me at one o'clock," he said. "There are 64 (sic) members over there, who are, in my opinion, hopefully, capable of getting together and working through what I have every understanding and appreciation are very serious and difficult matters, but which can be resolved and can be worked through in a way to be beneficial to the citizens of this state."

Ha, ha.

Instead, as an $819 billion stimulus bill wends its way from the House to the Senate, the Democrats and Republicans obsess over who's getting the larger slice, and whether the other guy got more whipped cream.

The Democrats' complaint: Taxpayer bailout money is going to pay bonuses to bankers. Even President Obama's carping about John Thain's $87,000 rug! The press mostly shares their outrage. The New York Times sniffed: "Some bankers took home millions last year even as their employers lost billions."

That ignores several realities:

• Bonuses are the primary way bankers get paid, in good years and bad.
• And what was the average bonus paid in 2008? $112,000, an order of magnitude away from "millions."
• Wall Street pay is crucial to the tax base of New York, a Democratic stronghold.
• Interior decorators need to earn a living, too.
• Those bonuses buy fancy designer suits, generating revenues for fashion houses which then advertise in magazines which employ editors and writers.

The Republicans' complaint: The stimulus package contains "wasteful spending," like funding the National Endowment for the Arts, preventing of sexually transmitted disease, and re-sodding the National Mall, so recently and thoroughly trod by the boots of inauguration attendees.

Hello, wasteful spending is pretty much the point here! An AFP analysis quotes John Maynard Keynes, the patron saint of stimulative government spending:

To create jobs, he wrote, the government could "fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again."

(Photo by St0rmz)

The crazy old man, who seemed, initially, like a halfway normal and fine choice for the seat, and who then turned out to be a crazed egomaniac with a giant stone monument to himself, will be a Democratic senator for the next two years at least, most likely joining Caroline Kennedy and Al Franken as the Democrats attempt to have the most disastrous of midterm elections yet in their rich history of disastrous midterm elections.

Reid and Durbin's only gambit was to refuse to seat Burris because his paperwork wasn't signed by the Illinois Secretary of State. That is a formality, but the Illinois Secretary of State played along and signed it on Friday. Hah.

[Photo: AP]

Yesterday Burris, who was selected by criminal Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich as a huge fuck-you to everyone on earth, went to Washington to join the Senate, but they didn't let him in, and he spent the day saying crazy things to the press. They say they can't seat him because his certificate hasn't been signed by the Illinois Secretary of State, but that is apparently just a formality.

So the AP just flat-out said Burris gets to be a Senator, but then that was denied, but now Harry Reid and Dick Durbin are apparently just hammering out the details of some sort of compromise deal.

So now we have this old crazy person, for at least two years, at which point he'll violate his promise to not run for another term, and probably lose.

Will this year's Senate seriously feature Al Franken, Caroline Kennedy, and Roland Burris? Let us hope Barack Obama gets a lot done in two years 'cause come January 2011 there will be like six Democratic Senators left, and they will all be named Kennedy.

Monserrate's girlfriend, Karla Giraldo, required 20 stitches for a gash over her left eye, and she initially told a doctor that Monserrate attacked her with a glass after discovering something in her purse (either drugs or "a card belonging to another man"), but then she came to her senses and declared it all an accident. Monserrate says he accidentally tripped while bringing her a glass of water, which you are free to try to work out the logistics of in your mind for a minute or two.

Cops seized the glass in question, and now they're summarizing Monserrate's apartment building security camera footage to the Daily News. It's all pretty gruesome.

"No one can look at the security video and think that this was an accident," said a law enforcement source who saw the footage. "The woman looks scared out of her mind and trying to get away from this guy."

The video shows Giraldo grabbing the apartment's front door as Monserrate tried to drag her out of the building, sources said.

Other video clips show Giraldo clutching a towel to her injured left eye and banging on the door of a neighbor's apartment for help, sources said.

That neighbor, Carolyn Loudon, 46, said Tuesday she heard Giraldo banging on her door but was too scared to open it.

She said she is used to noise coming from Monserrate's unit, but the ruckus was worse than usual on Dec. 19.

"It was frightening," Loudon said. "I heard screaming and then banging on the door."

Yes, sounds like your typical trip to the hospital following an accidental glassing to us.

Still unanswered: what was in Giraldo's purse? Early spin from people familiar with Monserrate's defense say they had a struggle over drugs (as Monserrate is a Scientologist, the drugs could be anything from cocaine to Xanax), but now there is this weird "card," according to these police sources.

Oh, and what a shock that this former cop—who was discharged from the NYPD with a "psychological disability pension" and whose religion forbids him from seeking medical treatment for whatever psychological problem he has—is scaring his neighbors with terrible noises at all hours of the night.

Anyway today Monserrate will be seated as a State Senator. He's "currently slated to chair the Consumer Protection Committee." (Consumers are advised not to date Hiram Monserrate.)

Incoming New York State Senate leader Malcolm Smith is making a remarkable number of deals with a remarkable number of devils before the new Senate has even begun their important work of not getting anything done.

The Democrats finally achieved a majority in the State Senate and Smith was supposed to be the majority leader, but then a couple bigoted old bastards declared that they'd defect from the party unless one of their anti-gay own got to lead the Senate instead. Within days of caving, Smith un-caved, and the Senate leadership was in doubt. Well, he caved again, only a little less so. The dissidents all get to chair committees!

What a wonderful first day of the new Democrat-controlled New York State Senate we are all having.

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan—whose daughter Lisa is the Illinois Attorney General, a political rival of Blago, and a possible Senate candidate herself—called on lawmakers to go back to Springfield next Wednesday for a rushed impeachment vote (that may take until January 13).

Following that simple majority vote (predicated on US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's playing of additional recorded evidence to a House investigative committee next Tuesday), the impeachment heads to the Senate where they'll "rush" a trial. Then, pending a successful two-thirds majority vote, Blago will be impeached, finally. This will take a year.

Meanwhile Blago's appointee for Obama's vacant Senate seat, Roland Burris, is on a collision course with wackiness! Where "wackiness" means "a Senate that will refuse to seat him." The 111th Congress begins its session on January 6, and they have no real legal ability to just not seat a legally appointed Senator, so sources say Majority Leader Harry Reid will just stall for a couple months, if necessary. Of course their job is easier if either Blago or Burris or both resign, which they won't.

The Senate also hopes Illinois' Lt. Governor will appoint a candidate of his own, or something, so they can pick which one they'll seat, whenever they get around to seating anyone.

So this should all be over by either mid-January or maybe March or maybe in 2010.

(Meanwhile Rahm Emanuel's seat is still open and no one seems to care!)

Well there's not really much of an "allegedly" about it. Monserrate broke a glass and stabbed his girlfriend's face with it early Friday morning, following a heated argument "over an undisclosed item Mr. Monserrate had found in her purse." This is according to the criminal complaint. But Monserrate says "he tripped while bringing Ms. Giraldo a glass of water, causing the injuries." Yes, then she ran into a door and fell down the stairs, as Monserrate repeatedly asked "why are you hitting yourself?"

More fun facts: after the incident, Monserrate drove his girlfriend to the hospital. Not the hospital five blocks away from his apartment, of course, but to one just outside city limits (maybe), 12 miles away. And what is Monserrate's background?

Mr. Monserrate is a former Marine and served 12 years in the New York Police Department before getting a psychological disability pension in 2000, according to a person who has reviewed documents related to Mr. Monserrate’s pension.

But unlike most former marines and NYPD members with psychological problems, Monserrate is not "an aggressive person," according to his girlfriend's sister.

Haha also he's a Scientologist. He promoted the insane Ground Zero "detoxification" program and partied at the Los Angeles Celebrity Center. (That's him above, grinning alongside Kelly Preston and John Travolta at the "religion's" 38th anniversary party in 2007.) And once he cosponsored a proclamation calling for an "L. Ron Hubbard Day." So obv he didn't slash his girlfriend, it was THE BODY THETANS in his MEAT BODY.

So. Monserrate is, as we said, a Queens Democrat and a state senator-elect. Have you heard the news about the Democrats in Albany? They just took the state senate for the first time in decades! Hooray! Change has come to Albany! Of course then three anti-gay bigot Democrats staged a weird power-play, refusing to support Malcolm Smith as majority leader unless he took gay marriage off the table. Negotiations broke down and now no one is entirely sure if they'll stay in the party, or who'll be the majority leader next session. So that Democratic lead is kinda tenuous! Which is maybe why Monserrate is pretty sure no one will demand that he not actually take the oath of office on January 1. It's all in Malcolm Smith's hands! Of course he has not been convicted of anything yet, and now his GF is not cooperating with the investigation anymore, so he probably won't be convicted of anything.

At a news conference, Genson explained there wasn't any point in Blagojevich exercising his authority to fill the seat. "Harry Reid said that they're not going to accept anybody he picks. Why would he do that?"

That's not quite what Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader, said in a letter to Blagojevich, where he warned that the legal standing of any Blago appointee would face scrutiny. In fact, it's a really messy legal question! But now we will never know the answer. Blagojevich has deprived us of another round of this political circus. For this action alone, which will cost an untold number of constitutional-law scholars their jobs in a horrible recession, he must pay.

Gibbs began his flack career on Capitol Hill, working in the press offices of 10 Congressmen and eventually graduating to the nice gig of press secretary to John Kerry as he began his presidential campaign. That didn't last long, and soon Gibbs found a role at with Americans for Job, Health Care, and Progressive Values, a 527 group. That happy, friendly, shiny-sounding group was, of course, nothing but a shop for vicious smears against upstate Democratic candidate Howard Dean, who, in 2004, was annoying the Democratic Establishment by babbling about The War and other liberal nonsense.

Gibbs, the group's spokesman defended even the grossest of their anti-Dean attacks, including an ad that just featured a photo of Osama bin Laden and a narrator saying Dean was unqualified. Ha! Democrats!

Gibbs continued his odd habit of borrowing vile right-wing attack lines when it suited him years later as Barack Obama's media guru. Responding to the Clinton campaign's meltdown over David Geffen's donation to Obama (coupled with an attack on Bill Clinton's womanizing), Gibbs dusted off the old "sold the Lincoln Bedroom" line, becoming the only person besides Rush Limbaugh in a decade to remember or care about that story.
Now, of course, everyone has fallen in line, because Gibbs was really, really good on TV. But we get the feeling he's even better suited for the miserable position of White House Press Secretary than liberals might hope. It truly will be a fun four years, guys!

As the 1980s began, the Republicans introduced and perfected their massive, modern fundraising apparatus, utilizing direct mail and donor targeting to build a database of party supporters willing to shell out cash whenever and wherever it was needed. In 1980, the GOP raised millions more from hundreds of thousands more than the Dems could manage. And they kicked the Democrats' asses. So, heading into the 1984 elections, the Democrats knew they needed a lot of cash to compete. The GOP had more than a million active donors, the Dems had almost 300,000. So the Democratic National Committee somehow decided that a star-studded telethon on NBC would solve the problem.

They spent $5 million on the program, hoping to raise an initial $10 million over 18 hours on Memorial Day weekend. And it was a star-studded affair! As the AP reported:

The telethon's lineup of about100 entertainers is being developed by the Pasadena, Calif., production company of Russ Reid. Among many signed up so far are Paul Newman, Jack Lemmon, Mary Tyler Moore, John Forsythe, Kris Kristofferson, Sally Kellerman, Dennis Weaver, Helen Reddy, Woody Herman, Hal Linden, Rita Moreno, Carmen McRae, Bea Arthur and Jean Stapleton, said Ron Holder, assistant to talent produce Bob Precht.

But not all the celebrity appearances worked out!

Jane Fonda has failed her fund-raising audition with the Democratic National Committee. The DNC plans to edit her out of the portions of its Memorial Day telethon that it will rebroadcast as campaign specials next year. Fonda was deemed too controversial for the shows, which will be test-marketed next month. Her appearance on Memorial Day generated hundreds of hostile telephone calls and letters. Apparently, many still think of her in the role of the left-wing activist who visited Hanoi, and not that of the physically fit liberal she now plays. Says one DNC official, "It's as if they saw Jane Fonda on the screen and suddenly it was the '60s again."

Nor did the telethon itself work out, at all. First, Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority jammed the phone lines. But they probably didn't even need to, considering how amazingly stupid the whole idea was to begin with. The telethon grossed $2.75 million, which was $2.8 million less than it cost to produce.

In the end, it's amazing that the Democratic Party ever won an election again.

So think of those bygone days of astounding incompetence as you watch (or don't watch, whatever) smooth Barry Obama close the deal tonight, thanks to his amazing fundraising abilities and massive donor list. It only took 25 years to catch up!

(If anyone, anywhere, has video evidence of the 1983 telethon, we'd love to see it.)

“The trick with all of these people is to try to come out as fair and evenhanded as possible,” Mr. Meyers, who is also the head writer for “SNL,” said.

Not to quote from an internet meme or anything, but, "O RLY?"

Mr. Meyers said the inclusion of Ms. Poehler’s Clinton character “made it safer to mention things about Sarah Palin without making it seem like an attack piece.”

...“The Palin people were happy with it as well, which was the weird thing,” Mr. Meyers said.

Well, yes, that may happen when you're taking great pains not to offend. The thing is, though: is that what SNL is about? Or is it simply another example of how the cable news reliance on equal-time talking points has obscured actual investigation all across the TV spectrum? After all, it's hard to imagine some of SNL's past, famously acerbic writers prioritizing fairness at the expense of scathing, truthful comedy.

Ironically, for an institution that's presumably liberal, the show's gotten most of its modern mileage out of satirizing Democrats (with the exception of Dana Carvey's early 90's run as Ross Perot and the elder George Bush). After Will Ferrell left the show early on during the George W. Bush presidency, SNL attempted a few recasts of the role, though none truly broke out. Is that the reason the show hasn't been able to produce a single iconic Bush skit since Ferrell's departure (while satirists like those at The Daily Show made hay of the president's material), or is it simply because when it comes to making fun of Republicans, SNL suddenly needs to bend over backwards to appear fair and balanced?

• SNL Cast: Even Sarah Palin Likes Tina Fey Playing Sarah Palin [NY Times]