To commemorate the event, in addition to We the People, Edward Norton's HBO documentary that brought a tear to Obama's eye (aww, remember when everybody loved him?), campaign manager David Plouffe has a new memoir out called The Audacity to Win.

Writing about a race that included days that felt like "having your legs amputated in the morning and your arms at night", Plouffe's might be the more interesting of the two projects, especially as the excerpt suggests he doesn't feel the need to mask his true feelings about a great many issues. For example:

He was shocked by how serious Obama was about Hillary Clinton -

Neither Ax nor I were fans of the Hillary option. We saw her obvious strengths, but we thought there were too many complications, both pre-election and postelection, should we be so fortunate as to win. Still, we were very careful not to object too forcefully. This needed to be his call.

Eventually, Obama decided threesomes weren't his thing and inviting Hillary to the table would almost certainly bring Bill as well.

When you're in a room with Biden, only one man does the talking. And that man is not you.

Evan Bayh was so perfect, it was kind of creepy. And Tim Kaine was a nice guy who thought it was nice of them to meet with him but even he knew that it was a long shot.

Obama didn't think it was a great idea to start knocking Sarah Palin right off the bat. Plouffe disagreed but said alright.

"Look," I told him, "simply say that you're adding your own personal voice, one principal to another." He acknowledged that he understood and would watch his words. "We'll send out a personal statement from you and Biden," I said, "but it's important you not suggest we misfired on the original statement. Don't throw the campaign under the bus."

So guess what Obama did? He threw them right under that bus.

These are probably not the sort of things you're likely to see in We the People, which comes from a much simpler place:

Amy Rice: I watched his convention speech in ‘04 and I was really impressed with what he had to say. I felt for the first time that he was a politician of my generation. And if you think back at that time. the country was so divided. and he was saying something new and something different. "We're not blue states, we're not red states, we're the United States." I bought his book and read his story. and he has an incredible, modern-day story, and that's how the idea was conceived.

Edward Norton: When I watch it, one of the first things I saw that I was most pleased about was that it succeeded as a film apart from access to Obama. I think when it really started to gel for me is when these guys showed it to me, and things like the Iowa section-I really had never understood caucus politics until I saw it.

But taken together, the two perfectly feed the still-simmering fascination with the Obama campaign, even if the Presidency has taken the shine off Barack.

Page Six reports the former Tennessee senator is seeking $30,000 to rent his "luxury" condo for five days. "It has a balcony overlooking the inaugural parade route, the Navy Memorial and the US Capitol, and comes with a reserved parking space," a tipster told the gossip section.

It's also probably stocked with bourbon, cigars and bitter partisanship!

YES, Barack Obama is black. But NO, he is not Bob Marley.

Smith's line is that he's just a news reporter standing up for objective truth, and that this doesn't put him at odds with orthodox conservative pundits like Hannity. "I know what I do, I do the news," Smith told O'Reilly.

That's often true! But he's also sometimes a bit of a pundit, albeit in a fun, appropriate and satisfying way. The newsman wasn't above letting some contempt show through, for example, when he scolded Nader for using the term "Uncle Tom" in reference to Obama. A disgruntled musing on Joe the Plumber was opinionated enough to close out an editorial at the Times (Fox's conservative peanut gallery must have loved that).

And as Smith bares his teeth like that more often, and as the right-wing punditocracy continues to implode, as reports surface that his right-wing boss Roger Ailes is on Rupert Murdoch's bad side, viewers are naturally going to wonder if Shep Smith is an harbinger of bigger things to come at Fox News. Or at least of more entertaining things.

(Video up top.)

At 72, in a safe senate seat, McCain has no political ambitions requiring him to be popular, to yuck it up for Leno on Veterans Day. But no one, really, wants to go through life disdained. That tends to be particularly true of those who deserve better.

(Video of some of McCain's better moments is above.)

Watch Palin talk about her inevitable future political rival/running mate, and sexism, in the video above. Below, the Alaska governor talks about how she interpreted Katie Couric's questions about what newspapers and magazines she reads, and makes another dubious claim about why Alaska is a hotbed of international activity.

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.)

According to state and city election records, Mr. Robbins registered to vote, under the name Tim Robbins, in November 1997, listing an address on West 15th Street, and registered a second time, under the name Timothy F. Robbins, in February 2004, listing an address on West 19th Street. The 1997 registration is now listed as inactive, while the 2004 registration is listed as active...

[An elections board member] wrote that, based on the active registration, Mr. Robbins should have gone to vote at the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library, at 40 West 20th Street, not at the McBurney YMCA, at 125 West 14th Street.

Catch that? Robbins registered twice, most recently at an address (his office, it turns out) assigned a different polling location from his old one. Election officials said they would have caught Robbins in this inadvertent mischief sooner, but he used a new voter registration form instead of an address change, and he hasn't tried voting in at least the last two elections.

Robbins said he doesn't remember registering twice — right, see, that would be the problem — and a poll worker told the Times she remembers Robbins voting at the supposedly invalid location in September.

We're betting the movie star will simmer down once he receives the copy of his signed 2004 registration form, enclosed in a letter from elections officials. As a Board of Elections official told the Times: "We were confused, but he shouldn't have been confused... it’s all very logical: He filled out a new voter-registration form with an entirely new address, and went to the old address."

Robbins "resents" this statement, and is printing things out and accusing people of going after his family just generally acting like a lunatic. Which means he'll probably take his march to City Hall, just as soon as he can locate it. And also his wallet, and a pen, where the hell did he leave that damned pen...

(Photo from TMZ)

If Palin had addressed the wardrobe issue during the campaign, it might have defused the charges of hypocrisy and significantly helped her ticket's chances. But by talking publicly like this now, she's just depleting her still-considerable balance of political capital. Palin's own accounting makes her look like a pushover who agreed to put on the airs of a folksy, small-town mayor while wearing fancy duds that, as she told Susteren, she was relieved to trade in upon her return home. It was only then, Palin said, that she put on "my own clothes." (See video above.)

This clothes thing shouldn't matter, as Palin herself said in the interview. And if she'd just left it alone, it wouldn't. But by talking out of both sides of her mouth about it — first she told Susteren she didn't wear her own clothes on the trail, then that she did — the Alaska governor not only revived the controversy but also reminded her remaining fans of what they liked least about her, about the fumbling duplicity of her ticket in its final weeks.

It doesn't help her credibility that Palin claims no Democratic nominees were slammed over who did their "hair and makeup," or that she also falsely claimed to Van Susteren that Harry Potter hadn't been published while she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and that she therefore couldn't have banned the book from local libraries. This was exposed (at Huffington Post) as an awful lie just minutes after Palin said it.

The governor repeatedly acknowledged she might like to run for the Republican nomination for president in 2012, 2016 or beyond (see video below). A more tactful politician might wait until the body of her last campaign was cold before engaging in such a discussion. On the other hand, everyone knows Palin is a (sometimes irrationally) confident and ambitious politician, and nothing if not plainspoken, so trying to deny the possibility of a run would have just looked silly and out of character.

Palin at least managed to deny those rumors she didn't know her continents, and to work in a cute story about a phone call with Barack Obama (also below). Fox: Put the quality material at the front of the broadcast when you air Part 2 Tuesday night. Having to watch another full hour of Palin is just going to give us more terrible flashbacks to last month.

...12 years after its founding, no greater media punch can be found in a smaller Web package than the Drudge Report, reportedly just a two-person operation. According to comScore Media Metrix, the Drudge Report's number of unique visitors rose 70 percent from September 2007 to September 2008, impressive even in a year that most Web sites covering the campaign have attracted plumper audiences.

Besides, people have been predicting Drudge's demise for nearly a decade, and nothing has come of it, Shafer adds. (Sounds familiar.)

Why did Drudge screw up the last few weeks of the election so badly, and how does he position his site now that the horse that he bet against has won? The internet publisher can safely avoid doing much self-reflection: He'll do well enough for himself remaining, with Fox News, part of the loyal opposition. Several months down the road, when Obama's honeymoon has ended, Drudge's hectoring will sound less tone-deaf and more like an integral part of the media narrative.

In the meantime, he's well-advised to get out of the house a bit more and start handicapping the next election cycle. He needs to be able to read the tea leaves much more closely this time around.

“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!

International tensions erupted after Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi joked that Obama had an admirable suntan. Ha... ha?

Then the French first lady, Carla Bruni, went after Berlusconi. She used to be Italian and was frankly embarrassed:

When I hear Silvio Berlusconi ... joke about the fact that Obama is ’always tanned’, that makes me feel funny,” she told le Journal du Dimanche newspaper. “That will be put down to humour. But often, I am very happy that I have become French,” she said.

This makes Bruni's husband Nicolas Sarkozy uncomfortable, because he wants Berlusconi to go along with his European economic bailout plan.

But also Bruni is getting all mouthy, backing a French affirmative action measure and talking about how the French are horrible racists.

The petition, titled “Yes We Can” - Mr Obama’s campaign slogan - said that his “election illustrated by a cruel contrast the failings of the French Republic.” It added: “By neglecting its own diversity, France has driven to despair a whole swathe of its youth and has prevented it from being proud of its country.”

Embarrassing! OK Germans, now it's your turn to get all wrapped up in this mess. We promise to pay attention, for once, to whatever you say, since we want to revel in your inevitable regret, at least until our current president also says something awful and we remember the last eight years and just hide until the end of January.