"I think we need a change." [Post]

It's official! Barack Obama has no business being president. He's just too damn skinny. According to the Journal: "In a nation in which 66% of the voting-age population is overweight and 32% is obese, could Sen. Obama's skinniness be a liability? Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique just might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them." In case you're keeping score, the presidential contender is "estimated" by "medical experts" to be roughly 180 pounds, or about ten pounds less than he should be for someone his height. [WSJ]

What would President Obama do about Monty, the Lovable Montauk Monster? Based on his divisive and bitter answer to a simple query about Martians and their hunger for our Earth women, it would depend on whether or not Monty's a Democrat. [Wonkette]

Through clenched teeth, let us affirm that it's a sign of the health of our republic, and the strength of our two presidential candidates, that pettifogging bullshit has become a mainstay of this election. Questioning someone's experience, voting record, fidelity to core conservative or liberal values, vapidity on the stump? Fine. Arguing that so-and-so's name sure don't sound Iroquois like "Pat Buchanan," so clearly he can't be commander-in-chief? Decidedly less so. Now comes word, courtesy of the thwarted InStyle editors at the Wall Street Journal, that Obama might be too skinny to make the world safe for democracy.

A clearly flailing John McCain has just released his new Obama attack ad and boy, is it a doozy! Employing a risky "Obama is awesome...but is he too awesome?" strategy that seems designed to fail, McCain calls Obama "the biggest celebrity in the world" (because if there's one thing America hates, it's celebrities) and plays footage of Obama's massive rallies and beatific smile that could have come from an Obama b-roll itself. The only signs that something is amiss are the split-second shots of Britney and Paris spliced into the ad — inclusions that have baffled the reps for both washed-up celebutantes. Says the Huffington Post:

• People may have won the bidding war for the first photos of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's twins. Total cost: $10 to $15 million. Reportedly. [JustJared]

The failure of imagination that is John McCain's new "Celeb" ad against Obama has yielded unintended results in the form of exaggerated reactions to it. The most salient comes from Obama himself, who, speaking in Rolla, Missouri yesterday, said this: "John McCain right now, he's spending an awful lot of time talking about me. You notice that? I haven't seen an ad yet where he talks about what he's gonna do...And so the only way they figure they're going to win this election is if they make you scared of me. So what they're saying is, ‘Well, we know we're not very good but you can't risk electing Obama. You know, he's new, he's... doesn't look like the other presidents on the currency, you know, he's got a, he's got a funny name.'"

Since it was built in 1931, River House, the swank and secluded Art Deco palace behind wrought-iron gates at the dead end of East 52nd Street, has topped the short list of exclusive (and very expensive) co-ops along the East River waterfront. Home to Henry Kissinger (and Pete Peterson until recently), the building boasts three 20 million+ listings at the moment, including a large tower duplex owned by real estate mogul Francesco Galesi, which was boldly listed for $50 million almost three years ago but has since come down to $35 million. (Other apartments for sale include Laura Pels' terraced third-floor unit for $29 million, and the opulent maisonette of Chicago producer Marty Richards.) Naturally, it's also home to a long list of heavy-hitting political donors. After the jump, a list of what some River House residents have done with their cash in this year's battle for the White House.

In the alternate universe where Chuck Norris is Arnold Schwarzenegger's Secretary of State, White House Chief of Staff Jon Voight is laughing his ass off. How could he not given this otherwise slow news day's insane spate of celebrity politicking? Drudge directs us to a new McCain ad featuring Britney Spears and Paris Hilton—not as endorsements, but pop tarts who evidently want to raise your taxes and dependency on foreign oil like someone we know. Meanwhile, alleged murderer Phil Spector was spotted in LA court wearing a "Barack Obama Rocks" button on his natty suit (just because you can doesn't mean you should!), and Ludacris' new single is called "Politics: Obama Is Here." Guess which "bitch is irrelevant"? And any takers on how long before the GOP makes quick work of this lyric: "McCain don't belong in ANY chair unless he's paralyzed"? Full song after the jump.

The Western Wall, or Kotel, has stood in Jerusalem for centuries, purported to be the last vestige of the Temple of David from the Old Testament. The practice of writing a prayer on paper, folding it and placing it in the cracks between the ancient bricks recently made news when Israeli newspaper Maariv published a note left by American presidential candidate Barack Obama. In the future, Obama might prefer to anonymously post his missives online via the Western Wall Heritage Foundation — emails and faxes are also accepted. (Photo by AP/Tara Todras-Whitehill)

Remember how sexist media pundits maybe helped Hillary Clinton ruin her shot at the Democratic presidential nomination? "When Hillary Clinton speaks, men hear, 'Take out the garbage,'" loutish author Marc Rudov said on Fox News in January, leading the way for other controversial statements by Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann of MSNBC. Well now the shouting heads are doing the same thing to John McCain. And it's those bastards at MSNBC again! Just listen to Joe Scarborough make fun of McCain for getting cluster-bombed by liberal jars of apple sauce during what should have been a simple grocery store photo-op (via the Observer):

The best that can ever be said of the Clinton consultants turned pundits is that they're right except for all the times they're wrong. That's certainly the case with Dick Morris, who previously said a conniving Hillary had the nomination in the bag, then adopted an air of insider omniscience in setting everyone right as to Obama's sure-thing triumph. As for the other chubby triangulator on speed-dial, Mark Penn is wrong even when he's right, and he's hardly ever that. As Hillary's chief political strategist, he thought using the word "cocaine" repeatedly on television by way of denying his camp was trying to portray Obama as a cokehead was subliminally savvy. It was not. He thought focusing on all the big states and ignoring the little ones with caucuses meant an easy glide to the Denver convention. It did not. He thought his own party's primaries allotted state delegates in a winner-take-all-fashion. Alas, they did not. Now Penn's written a piece for Politico in which he claims to have spotted the decisive voter bloc for the '08 showdown. Even if he's right, broadly speaking, he fucks his own thesis into demographic incoherence by sentence two.

BarackBook is the Republican National Committee's new faux-cial network. As a campaign tool, it's supposed to make clear the connections between Obama and his "questionable" friends, like "60's Radicals!" William Ayers of the Weather Underground and Marilyn Katz of the Students for a Democratic Society. They have cute profile photos, sure, but where are the Last Night's Party-style gossip shots of Obama circa 1968 in a Mao baby tee? Users can send a donation to the GOP; they cannot send John McCain a Friends-for-Sale request.

Political thinking, wrote Orwell, suffers from a universal problem. "People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome." You'd think by now that sentence would be printed and tacked above every editorial desk in every newspaper bureau around the world. Yet who hasn't read recently that Barack Obama is already the next president of the United States? Even where this presumption isn't stated outright, it's implied with enough moonbeams-and-gillyflowers sentimentality (halos if you're Rolling Stone) that every guilty hack in the country must have laughed hardest at last week's Onion headline: "'Time' Publishes Definitive Obama Puff Piece." ("When the American people cast their vote in November," remarked the only slightly exaggerated version of editor Richard Stengel, "this is the piece of fluff they're going to remember.")

Governor Tim Kaine, who has funny eyebrows, will probably be Barack Obama's pick for Vice President. Fun facts about him: he's utterly boring and also believes "that a marriage is between one man and one woman." Also he might not be VP because he's only been governor of Virginia for a couple years and the Lieutenant Governor is a Republican. [The Corner]

Because it was only a matter of time before they lumped Obama in with the self-hating gays. Tigereye Design, a button maker in Ohio, decided to design a campaign button featuring the presidential candidate alongside Idaho Senate Democrat Larry LaRocco, under the caption "Change We Can Believe In." They, uh, got the wrong Larry. At left, the once smiling visage of Republican Congressman Larry Craig, he of the under-partition men's room proposition. The Washington Post's Sleuth blog reports that LaRocco campaign spokesman Dean Ferguson said he "just laughed like everyone else did" but adds that no one in the LaRocco camp commissioned any buttons. Operation Chaos proceeds apace. The best, though, is the Tigereye (how great is that name now?) flack's explanation for what happened:

This pro-Obama ad is about how "hope" is a lot like a sexually transmitted disease. It is designed to reach to the Youngs, all of whom have herpes, especially in Brooklyn. It is by MoveOn.org. In order to make sure it appeals to those cold-sored 20-somethings, it feeds their bullshit pop culture nostalgia by featuring a guy who was on Boy Meets World and a lady from that vampire show. It will be the very first political ad ever to appear on Comedy Central where it is sure to convince to all those post-racial young Larry the Cable Guy and Carlos Mencia fans to vote for Senator Obama.

Tom DeLay thinks he's a Marxist (if only mewls my subscription to New Left Review), McCain isn't sure he's not a socialist, and everyone else in America agrees Obama's a partisan liberal Democrat despite his sentimental post-partisan effluvium. The evidence for this assessment rests heavily on an elaborate ranking system devised by the magazine National Journal — sort of the Zagat for congressional voting (Barbara Boxer's "romantic" yea for this "controversial" resolution to "carve up" Iraq makes her a "fire-breathing elitist gorgon.") It named Obama the "Most Liberal Senator" in 2007. Except that its methodology is cracked, according to Josh Patashnik at the New Republic. For one thing, a decisive factor in the magazine's evaluation is how many votes a lawmaker has missed, and Obama's actually not been truant enough:

And a big gold star to the man or woman who uncovers Barack Obama's elusive Columbia "thesis" on Soviet nuclear disarmament. (It was really more of a lengthy term paper, as Columbia didn't do theses in 1983, when Obama graduated). His old poli sci professor Michael Baron, now a retiree in Florida, says he can't find the A-grade essay, claiming it probably got lost in the move. Well, it's nice to know one Jew in the Sunshine State is happy to shield Obama from his rumored past. And hey, speaking of Jews, a yeshiva student in Jerusalem did a bad, bad thing and pilfered the candidate's prayer scroll from the Wailing Wall. That's like returning your mother's call a week late, only to tell her you married an Irish girl. Here's what Obama asked of God:

This video of John McCain acting like a petulant teenage girl toward a Wall Street Journal reporter is hilarious (best part: Lindsay Graham's "mee-OW" look at the end). And also telling! (TGIF, guys, we'll get through this.) John McCain's always been a favorite of the press, because of his insane availability. (Read Ana Marie Cox in Radar to learn more!) (Alex, call me!) He's affable and genuinely likes reporters. But we've reached a funny moment in their relationship. Because the media is in the tank for Obama. They love him! They cover him all day and all night and ignore McCain. But! The Obama campaign is totally, ridiculously press unfriendly. They're tight with information and generally try to control the message as much as Bush's people did. That's right, in his dealings with the press, Obama resembles President Bush! Some of the Obama faithful see this as a good thing. The media is the enemy. They distort and lie! No one trusts or likes anyone anymore, at all. So McCain is buddy-buddy with all his reporters but is now waging inept war on the media for ignoring him. Obama's beloved by the television people but is pissing off Adam Nagourney. So basically you can bitch about how the media keep painting McCain as a independent lovable American MAVERICK and they all play down his gaffes because they like him, or you can complain that the media are not even bothering to hide their gross man-crush on Barack Obama while ignoring his opponent and both are absolutely correct. So have at it, guys! R.I.P. observable reality!