Check out the iTunes store’s front page and you’ll see something sure to bring a thrill to music lovers everywhere.

That’s right, Al Gore and Melissa Etheridge have finally teamed up to make an iTunes playlist! Take that, bunch of dead Beatles!

Enjoy the ex-veep’s mini-reviews — painstakingly re-typed because we can’t figure out how to cut-and-paste from the damned iTunes — after the jump. And just try to read them without hearing Gore’s voice droning deep within your skull.

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Cheney-enabling fearmonger Stephen Hayes will take some time off from writing White House propaganda for the Weekly Standard to write Dick Cheney’s “biography,” according to U.S. News & World Report.

Cheney’s bio will presumably be as full of VP propaganda and disinformation as another Hayes’ book, “The Connection: How al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America.”

The relationship works like this: Cheney releases “intelligence” to a friendly coconspirator, said coconspirator types it up for the Standard or WSJ or (in Judith’s case) the New York Times, and Cheney then quotes the article in question as justification for whatever batshit evil scheme he’s currently cooking up.

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John Kerry got his letter published (costly registration required) in today’s Wall Street Journal!

Our parents used to be totally proud of us when the local paper would print our letters. (”There are too many loose dogs around the playground.”)

Anyway, Kerry used a bunch of his inspirational lines from the ‘04 debates — “The 9/11 Commission’s recommendations to secure our most vulnerable infrastructure remain virtually ignored,” for example — in the letter, which seems to actually be about Ned Lamont. Kerry’s letter, after the jump ….

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• FEC decides to permit 527s to continue as is, meaning “even larger sums to be spent influencing races this year and in 2008.” [WP, NYT]
• Bush essentially had no choice but to join talks on Iran. [NYT, WP, W$J]
• Bush says he’s “troubled” by news of civilian killings in Haditha, Iraq: “If, in fact, the laws were broken, there will be punishment.” [NYT]
• Homeland Security Department cuts funding for Washington and New York while boosting support for mid-size cities. [WP, NYT]
• Sen. Hillary Clinton launches Senate campaign with broad swipes at the administration: “I believe that we need a fundamentally new direction. . . We are better than what is happening in America today.” [NYT]

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* Reliable Source: Rep. Patrick Kennedy receives six stitches in his lip after being accidentally struck in the head with a hammer. [WP]
* Lloyd Grove’s Lowdown: Teresa Heinz Kerry was reportedly restrained by a staffer so Edwards could reach Kerry first after his convention acceptance speech. [NYDN]
* Liz Smith: Fred Barnes wants Rice to replace Cheney, Senor to replace McClellan, and Rove to jump to the RNC. [NYP]
* Cindy Adams: Stylist Patricia Field does up Ari Fleischer. [NYP]

* Washington Whispers: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy complains about making six figures: “We are patronized when we meet judges from England, the European Union, or Malaysia, whose salaries double that of ours. They say, ‘We’re so sorry about your salaries.’”. . . Kerry’s PAC has raised $1.1m in the past three months. . . Ted Kennedy is “pretty close” to Margaret Spellings. . . George Allen claims he cuts his own grass. [USN&WR]
* Inside Politics: Kerry says his biggest mistake was using federal financing after the convention: “I think the most important thing would have been to spend more money, if we could have, on the advertising and responding to some of the attacks.”. . . Boehner is optimistic for GOP chances in ‘06. [WT]
* Inside the Beltway: Joe Klein is re-releasing his book, “Politics Lost: How American Democracy was Trivialized by People Who Think You’re Stupid.” [WT]
* Liz Smith: Sandra Bernhard on the Bush twins: “You think those girls abstain?” [NYP]

* Names & Faces: Bono says he feels “exploited” by the use of his photo in campaign literature for Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi. [WP]
* Washington Whispers: Playboy and Penthouse are banned from State Department newsstands at the request of Condoleezza Rice. . . Josh Bolten recently cut work to watch a few Washington Nationals games. . . Fidel Castro could die within the next few years, American officials contend. . . Frank Luntz has a favorable view of Mark Warner. . . Rep. Nancy Pelosi misses the chocolate she gave up for lent. [USN&WR]
* Page Six: Site indicates Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) may have kept a “love nest” with his former chief of staff. . . Jenna once woke Bush up and made him call her then-boyfriend Blake Gottesman after they fought. [NYP]
* Lloyd Groves’s Lowdown: Gore blames Bush for failures surrounding Katrina and 9/11 in the “green issue” of Vanity Fair. [NYDN]
* The Scoop: Susan Sarandon wants national elections to be monitored by a third party: “The last one was an embarrassment. Everybody knew there was fraud, but nothing was done about it.” [MSNBC]

• Reliable Source: Kerry flack David Wade on Kerry’s hotel request list: “Dick Cheney drinks Perrier and refuses to watch anything but Fox News. John Kerry hates Evian, eats meatloaf, and snacks on chocolate chip cookies. If these documents had been leaked during the campaign we’d have won in a landslide.”. . . Antonin Scalia makes “dismissive hand-flick-off-the-chin” gesture at a reporter. . . Patti LaBelle breaks down in D.C. . . Tom DeLay is banned from carrying a gun. [WP]
• Under the Dome: Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) got to yell “Start Your Engines” at NASCAR race. . . 72-year old Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) goes jogging at 5:30 in the morning. [The Hill]
• Cindy Adams: McCain has secured “commitments from governors, Senate colleagues, Bush moneymen who opposed him in 2000.” [NYP]

* Reliable Source: Alec Baldwin on lobbying: “I get a headache around these people. Committees! Budgets!”. . . Bush twins, with Henry Hager and Joshua Ginsberg, seen at Oyamel restaurant in Crystal City. . . Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) spotted in coach. [WP]
* Lloyd Grove’s Lowdown: Teresa Heinz Kerry says her husband’s ‘04 loss was a “let down for the world.” She added, “I miss those guys, the Secret Service. We’re having a party for them in the garden this spring. The cowboys, someone else’s cowboys now.” [NYDN]

* Online donors who fed the ‘04 elections with small contributions are more representative of the middle class but just as polarized as large donors. [WP]
* The GOP’s post-9/11 push for the Jewish vote has “not materialized in any convincing fashion”; DeLay and Abramoff scandals have cut into gains made on security issues and Israel. [WP]
* Bush left his political problems at home when he left the country. [NYT]
* Democratic party leaders shine spotlight on Sen. Obama. [USAT]
* DeLay’s reelection is a referendum on DeLay. [NYT]
* Democratic candidates lack unified national message. [NYT]
* Few lawmakers are against NSA eavesdropping; most seek oversight. [USAT]
* Mainstream Democrats reject calls for Bush’s impeachment as a few stray radicals float the idea. [W$J]
* Electronic disclosure of contributions to senators is in the Dark Ages. [USAT]

Rush Limbaugh is making a fuss over a Hotline report that John Kerry tried to fire up his troops at a campaign reunion Christmas party by promising them an impeachment trial in their stocking: “If we take back the House, there’s a solid case to bring articles of impeachment against this president.” Spokeskid David Wade insists that Kerry was “joking,” which surely must be the case as they held the festivities at a place called “Finn McCool’s.” I guess Drinky McLoser’s was booked. MORE »

• Reliable Source: Advisors to Kathleen Babineaux Blanco had their own concerns about the Louisiana governor’s wardrobe during the Katrina aftermath. . . Bush twins spotted “in fancy tops and jeans, dining on sushi, scallops and sea bass at Oya with eight other gals” on Friday night. . . Clay Aiken checked into the Madison Hotel under the name Jimmy Carter. . . Dr. Phil seen at Georgetown Haagen-Dazs. [WP]
• Under the Dome: House debate turns disorderly. . . Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) celebrates 50 years in Congress today. . . Michael Chertoff sees “Syriana” in Georgetown. [The Hill]
• Lloyd Grove’s Lowdown: John Kerry wines and dines about three dozen former campaign staffers. Chris Heinz, meanwhile, may run for Congress. [NYDN]
• Fox 411: Al Gore hosts screening of Tommy Lee Jones‘ new film, recalls reading the Bible with former college roommate. [Fox News]

• Democrats threaten to filibuster against the extension of the Patriot Act. Feingold (D-Wis.): “This is worth the fight.” [NYT, WSJ, USAT]
• The CIA has secret Counterterrorist Intelligence Centers in more than two dozen countries; new emphasis on cooperation with intel agencies of other countries. [WP]
• 22 Republicans join Democrats to defeat GOP spending plan; “stunned” Republican leaders, left scrambling, pass “softened” bill hours later along party lines, 217 to 215. [WP, NYT, WSJ, LAT]
• Administration’s response to its critics stems from 2004 campaign tactics; Bush said to be “happy to be fighting back.” [WP, LAT]
• Who was Bob Woodward’s source? Executive editor of the Washington Post: “[I]f the information is found independent of our source relationship, sure we’ll print it.” [WSJ, NYT, NYT]
• Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.), a Vietnam veteran, tearfully calls for the immediate withdrawal of forces from Iraq; 13 service members from his district have died in Iraq. Murtha: “Our military has done everything that has been asked of them. It is time to bring them home.” [WP, NYT, WSJ, LAT, USAT]
• Bush, in South Korea, says a North Korea with nuclear weapons “will not be tolerated”; trip is overshadowed by criticism of Iraq war. [NYT, WSJ, USAT]
• Bush’s meeting with Putin “was choreographed to minimize the potential for another display of the tensions that now color their relationship.” [USAT]
• Advocacy ads about Alito hit the airwaves. [WP, NYT]
• Americans are feeling more isolationist, less unilateralist, according to Pew study. [NYT]
• Senate Indian Affairs Committee digs into friend of Jack Abramoff. [WP, LAT]