Remember that show, The West Wing, which was a show about terrible libtards talking very fast while they raced through underground tunnels? Ugh. (Maybe we are just bitter because Aaron Sorkin’s next venture, Matthew Perry’s Variety Hour For Humorless Liberals, was so awful it poisoned everything associated with him. ) ANYHOW, Jimmy Smits was apparently on this show in its waning year(s?), playing a simulacrum of hopeful ethnic Democratic nominee Barack Obama, while Alan Alda got stuck with the McCain role. MORE »

• Why would Obama rather surf in beachy Hawaii and be President than live in Nairobi with his brother in a subprime lean-to? [Marc Ambinder]
• Embarrassing reggaeton musical act “Daddy Yankee” endorses McCain, at one of Cindy’s 11 high schools. [The Caucus]
• Joe Biden admired notable racist Strom Thurmond for his mysterious and fashionable hair. [Ben Smith]
• A bunch of losers Photoshop a button for Obama because they are too sad not to. [Huffington Post]
• “Barack Obama” is a fictional character created by Aaron Sorkin and he is played by Martin Sheen. [Ezra Klein]
• Dick Cheney is having his own Convention! In Azerbaijan, with Foreigns! [Matthew Yglesias]
• Joe Biden told his wealthy lobbyist son Hunter Biden to cut it out with the wealth and the lobbying. [Fresh Intelligence]

* Reliable Source: Laura Bush dropped two sizes after a year of private fitness classes; she works out three times a week at 8 a.m. [WP]
* Rush & Molloy: Bloomberg, David Remnick, Bob Schieffer, Lesley Stahl, Kurt Andersen, Richard Holbrooke, and Ron Silver attended Joe Klein’s New York book party. . . Actor Dennis Hopper defends Bush. [NYDN]
* Page Six: Cheney was accidentally shot on a hunting trip in the late ’90s. . . Emails from Aaron Sorkin to call girl are revealed in her new book. [NYP]

* Inside the Beltway: Record number of lawmakers and reporters will descend on the Conservative Members Retreat today; bloggers are invited for the first time. . . Entrepreneur hawks “George Allen for President Classic Thong.” [WT]
* Page Six: Bernard-Henri Levy jokes that Barack Obama could win in ‘08 “if he’s smart enough not to hire Bob Shrum to handle his campaign.” [NYP]
* Rush & Molloy: Memoir of former prostitute Dimitra Ekmektsis includes drugged times with Aaron Sorkin. [NYDN]