Strike One: First, they jumped a Liberian immigrant and beat him with a metal pipe. He did not get the chance to educate them on the distinction between "African" and "African-American."

Strike Two: They "demanded that a Hispanic man tell them how he had voted."

Strike Three: They got in the car and ran down Ronald Forte—a white guy wearing a hoodie. They thought he looked black.

Now all four of them have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to nine years.

Race-blind racists. MLK's dream is here.

Newsweek's Jessica Bennett sent the following query to flack Peter Shankman's Help A Reporter Out, the wildly successful service for matching attention-hungry experts with reporters desperate to make a point. We're guessing she was thinking of going to the far more appropriate Daily Kos first, but then realized she needed to talk to folks with a sense of humor. (She should have stuck with Kos and then just made fun of her sources, duh.)

Only maybe 21 people from line got into the studio, due to VIPs taking seats, and Johnson was approximately number 40. Out of 250. She yelled, looked for "Teri and Jessica from the audience department," called a friend on staff — nothing. Then the bitterness set in.

The Daily Show must have known this was going to happen. That's why it weirdly made everyone re-confirm on Oct. 27! And if Johnson had only known, she could have totally called in some favors and gotten VIPed. But the bastards never warned her. AFTER ALL JOHNSON DID FOR THEM!

I am owed. Not the cost of my flight. Or the cost of my hotel. Or even the vacation days I took, which I could have used to visit my family. What I'm owed is the experience of witnessing history take place somewhere other than alone an empty bar on 11th Avenue, sucking on a can of Bud Light, feeling completely emotionally empty.

Because of the incompetence of others, I was robbed of an experience that should have been sublime, moving, and meaningful.

What was taken away from me cannot be remedied with a VIP ticket — essentially a shorter wait in line NEXT time. At this point, I can't plan to have a next time. How do I stand outside under that awning again, without being reminded of what was done? How do I look at the heads of the audience department, knowing how negligent they were through this entire situation? I don't plan to ever go back.

At least her friend "Tracey" from Britain made it in. Bittersweet. OMG, this is just like that time a dolled-up Mary Rambin got ditched by Julia Allison and Megan Asha outside the Sex And The City premiere, which was also disastrously overbooked! It's also just as sad and profound.

Seriously, though, why do shows treat their live studio audiences so almost sadistically poorly like this? Don't they know the fans who show up for these tapings are INSANE and already have impossibly high expectations and told 200 of their closest friends, in advance, about how awesome everything was going to be, thus guaranteeing they will curse your name endlessly online if they ever get locked out? (NB to David Letterman: I'm still sorry I mauled your cameraman that one time, but he always set up his shots so as to MOCK YOU. You should really fire that jerk. Anyway call me!)

(Photo above from Johnson's website.)

“I've avoided e-mailing him,” Wallace confesses. “So finally at 5 o'clock, I broke down: How's the hologram? And he said, Oh my God. I said, is that good, bad?

“So we saw it. We were like, phew; OK, it's not this great thing that we have to catch up to. 'A' for effort, but sometimes these things don't pan out. For every perceptive pixel magic wall, there's that stuff out there.”

Not to be outdone, Fox deployed its own magic trick on election eve: Brit Hume made himself disappear from his last election night anchoring job two hours earlier than scheduled. We knew he was feeling burned out, but, just, wow:

At 1 a.m. Hume, who is scheduled to stay on for another hour, has made an executive decision to call it a night. Bret Baier is summoned to slip into Hume's seat at the anchor desk. Hume's panel looks a bit forlorn as the PAs swoop in to remove his microphone. The switch is made, unceremoniously, during a commercial break.
Asked how he feels to have anchored the final presidential election of his career, Hume pauses a moment and says: “Mostly relieved.”

A young female assistant helps him into his raincoat. In the elevator on the way down from the Fox News 12th floor studios, a staffer says: “Brit, you're leaving already?” “The story's kind of over,” Hume says.

Ladies and gentleman: Brit Hume has left the building!

Perry, a Harvard man, is fluent in Swedish and loves hockey, photography, and soccer. And he's nice!

His wife, Lisa Olson, described him as a man with a "generous heart" who would gladly give his shoulder to anyone to lean on.

"He just has the most open heart," Olson said. "He's just this guy if you need a shoulder, that's fine."

Winfrey said she didn't know him but that "he was very nice to me" and let her sob mascara all over his shoulder. Awww. She's putting him, of course, on her show today. She's calling him "Mr. Man" and everything. Multimillion-dollar TV deal to follow, along with tire-slashings courtesy Gayle and Stedman.

(Daily Show video up top.)

As much as it was a crystallization of a historic moment, Obama's speech was also a chance to get his presidency off to a running start. There was a dramatic bit of global statecraft — "to those who would tear the world down, we will defeat you" — but mainly a look inward and across the political aisle. He called for Americans to resolve to "pitch in and work harder."

To McCain supporters, some of whom were loudly disappointed at their candidate's defeat tonight: "I may not have won your vote tonight but i hear your voices. I need your help and I will be your president too."

To the nation more broadly: "We rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisan ship."

"There is new energy to harness... the road ahead will be long, our climb will be steep..... but I have never been more hopeful that we will get there. We, as a people, will get there."

Gawker HQ:

The scene at a neighborhood bar in Obama's hometown of Chicago, via commenter psych101 and a "shitty cell phone camera." Looks fun!

Spotted on the Web: Tumblr's HQ:

Commenter supergoddess and her pals are living it up in style, in the tank: "We're pigging out on chili & artichoke dip & maple-bacon cupcakes at my house (and no small amount of wine and bourbon), and totally screaming at the TV. When this photo was taken the photographer said "ONE... TWO... THREE... MAVERICK!"

"And we all laughed."

(Are maple-bacon cupcakes elitist? In the best possible way?)

This one had the subject line "Election Layover" in the subject line, and a terrorist gang sign in the pic:

And another! Clearly in the tank:

From Pareene's cell phone:

From Blakeley's friend Kate!

A night editor whose wife snuck up on him, with a cellphone:

"All the gays who can't marry in FL love them some holograms on CNN...:"

More from the Denton party:

CNN has a device that renders three-dimensional holographic images of the network's far-flung contributors in the channel's New York studio.

Anderson Cooper should have a ball with that. No teasing poor holographic Candy Crowley, Anderson. She's tired enough as it is.

CNN's competitors have to content themselves with mid-1990s videogame technology:

General Electric's NBC has two new "virtual-reality studios" where anchors will update animated maps. NBC and MSNBC will feature a running electoral count projected on the side of the networks' headquarters in Rockefeller Plaza. News Corp.'s Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network and the Fox broadcast network will use a new virtual-reality studio to provide graphics and polling data. News Corp. also owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

It's a good thing the TV people are sexing up this election with magical effects. Because otherwise it would be such a snoozer!

“We could know Virginia at 7,” he said. “We could know Indiana before 8. We could know Florida at 8. We could know Pennsylvania at 8. We could know the whole story of the election with those results. We can’t be in this position of hiding our heads in the sand when the story is obvious.”

Eight o'clock on the East coast is, of course, before most voters in California even get off work.

CBS News is not the only one that's cocky. Slate is refusing to "engage in a weird Kabuki drama that pretends McCain could win California," editor David Plotz told the Times. NBC News said it's an "unfortunate circumstance" that it may be calling the election before polls close elsewhere, but OH WELL.

It's actually true, as we said ourselves, that the presidential race could be wrapped up around 8 p.m. There's really no way California is going for McCain or Texas for Obama. But an early call for the Democratic nominee could hold down lefty turnout in California, thus helping anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8 as well as Proposition 4, which imposes certain restrictions on abortion rights.

Not that the nets will or should care about those unintended side effects. Where they should probably be careful is in calling the swing states. With interest in this election so intense, and cable and online competition at new highs, the pressure to extrapolate from early precinct returns in states like Ohio, Indiana and Florida will be high. Exit polls, set for initial release at 5 p.m., will add only add to the pressure.

And the "swing" states only start to matter if the election ends up way closer than is now expected. As things stand at present, it looks like the only real dilemma will be determining when Obama supporters should put their elitist French champagne on ice.

Pirro Lights Up Her Crowd Even As She Concedes Race [NY Sun]

Dan Rather to 'play it straight' on Comedy Central tonight [Philadelphia Inquirer]