What you are seeing here is Arianna Huffington, Stephen Baldwin, Jim Norton and—as required by law—Meghan McCain talk about crucial politics things with Jay Leno, who is apparently living out some nascent Bill Maher fantasy, what with the newsy roundtable. It is a disaster, especially the zeitgesity David Letterman part. Arianna talks about having affairs with married people, and then our Meg says something about how her dad is John McCain, and how awkward this makes sex!!, or something. There are about 90 elephants in the room… which reminds your Wonkette Editor: NEW ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY for comments of a certain strain about young Meg’s physical appearance. She is an impressionable young brilliant Republican strategist! [video at HuffPost]

Madame regina St. Peggintonia Noonanshire of the Wall Street Journal banking pamphlet guest-hosted a special version of Mornington Joeington today, and one of the topics was the Death of Newspapers and Journalism. In this snippetington, she interrupts a polite conversation between Mika and Arianna to declare an Official Sadness over how, in the future times, our greatest newspapers will not be able to afford sending a single reporter “undercover” to Newark, New Jersey for five months. “Oh well.” Then she calls everyone who does anything on the Internet an idiot, especially in San Diego. Just a very rude woman sometimes, Peggington is. [MSNBC]

We’ll put this nicely since we don’t wish to become victims of Gawker-style HuffPo blogroll revenge: GIVE THE POOR DUO A CHANCE, FAIREST ARIANNA! She writes in this column of hers, “It’s a Nora Ephron romantic comedy. When Hillary Met Barack. Sleepless in Chappaqua. You’ve Got Fundraising Email. Two intensely driven politicians cross paths, each seeking the highest office in the land — talk about a cute meet!” Just… gahh… hmm… we see the writerly device here and it’s trite vapid plagiarism of Maureen Dowd not very edifying. Look. This selection process has been the most drama-free thing a Clinton has ever done. Celebrate! [HuffPo]

Wonkette’s Liz Glover had the opportunity last night to interview Arianna Huffington, founder of Daily Kos or something, about her new book and the nicknames she chooses for Tim Russert. When Liz is waiting for Arianna to sign her a copy of the book, some guy in line says “I know people that work for her,” presumably people who write for the Huffington Post. In other words, this guy knows any human being on earth.

Arianna Huffington says John McCain told her he didn’t vote for George W. Bush in 2000, and she thinks this is some indication of “how far he’s fallen.” It could be that, or it could be that George W. Bush had ruined his chance at the presidency by racially smearing his young daughter only months earlier. [HuffPo]

Bill O’Reilly is shocked that Huffington Post commenters say mean things about Nancy Reagan and Tony Snow! And so he sent some little man to confront the Hate Queen Arianna Huffington about her hateful hate speech and she had no response except some jibber jabber about how “the Internet works.” MORE »

The Huffington Post is poised to turn a profit, has 1,800 bloggers and… what? She doesn’t pay any of them? Not a penny? But she might let them donate a portion of their ad proceeds to charity eventually? I guess it’s now clear why the site skews left (Republicans don’t work for free, man), and why we here at Wonkette love Nick Denton. [Portfolio.com]

Newsweek salutes Powerful Women! Like Blog-empress Arianna Huffington, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, and, uh, Rachael Ray. All fine examples of modern female leadership! One went from successful pundit/author to head of one of the most influential lefty sites on the internet, one is the first female mayor of Atlanta (and the first black woman to be elected mayor of any major southern city), and one is a busty television personality whose Wikipedia page currently describes her as “this hot ass beautiful, young womens.” Just as Arianna proved that you can marry a gay Republican and still amass political power and influence (on the internet), Rachael Ray proved that you can overcome the adversity of being an attractive woman without any training or ability in cooking and still end up the breakout star of a tv network dedicated ostensibly to the culinary arts.

In All Their Glory [Newsweek]

* Arianna partied harder than you did last night. [HuffPo]
* West Wing paper airplane competition destroys records of Abramoff visits to the White House. [TPM Muckracker]
* Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pissed that rumors about Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei’s death always start with “Iranian supreme leader.” [Regime Change in Iran]
* Karl Rove wants to see Condi vs. Hillary in ‘08. Negroponte does what he’s told. [Democrats.com]
* Netroots swearing-in party is first and last time any of these nerds will be in a VIP room. [Flickr]
* Eleanor Clift’s new nickname for Hillary Clinton is hilarious, so funny — really, just spot on. [The Gaggle]
* Most annoying TV personality in the world thinks Nancy Pelosi is most liberal woman in the world. [Think Progress]

From yet another piece on CrackBerry addiction (new angle: it makes you a bad parent!) comes this bit of famous family fun: MORE »

Arianna Huffington was really pushing Murtha this week — not just as House leader, but as “Person of the Year.” MORE »