WIN OF THE AFTERNOON: In response to this post about bulbous adulterer crybaby Newt Gingrich twit-bitching about Sonia Sotomayor while he was visiting Auschwitz (!) today, Wonkette commenter GuruKalehuru offered this sad assessment of America’s dumbest fad for old people: “This twitter thing is going to be like the new ‘It was the alcohol talking.’ Or it should.”

It’s just plain great to have the official White House photographer putting stuff on Flickr all the time — it is great for democracy, it is great for voyeurs, and it is especially great for independent websites lacking the budget for, say, an Associated Press membership. But, because Flickr is technically “part of the Internet,” these noble images from the White House have a completely typical wasteland of comments beneath each picture. Why does the Internet hate anything nice? MORE »

NO WE DID NOT BAN YOU (YET): We don’t know what’s going on with the comments, either. But we have our comment boxes again, on our various machines, across this great land. HEADQUARTERS is maybe working on the “can’t comment at Wonkabout” problem? Okay here is a fun challenge: If you can comment, but couldn’t before, please explain what happened, in the comments, and then we’ll have TECH SUPPORT read these comments, the end?

• ONLINE COMMENTERS ARE GENERALLY STUPID AND RUDE: Virginia Heffernan looks at comments on the Washington Post and finds their authors uninformed, mean-spirited, and unwilling to engage in anything resembling an adult argument. Thank you, Wonkette Commentariat, for at least being stupid and rude in a fun way. [New York Times]

Apparently your Wonkette was depicted this way on Anderson Cooper’s show last night, as part of the “angry left” along with Daily Kos and, uh, the Washington Post. Really? We’ve always thought of ourselves as WARBLOGGERS. The pull quote CNN uses, of the word “Mad” repeated three times (this is how CNN indicates that the Angry Left is “mad” about something), comes from a Kev-O-Tron comment that was actually written, “mad mad mad.” So CNN misquoted Kev-O-Tron, IS ALL. Anyway, enjoy Gitmo, Kev-O-Tron! [CNN]

Here’s something good about our new Great Depression: All Internet companies are going under, soon, along with the websites of newspapers and cable channels, and of course all the companies that provide the free blogging. What this means, we sincerely hope, is the end of Web Comments, forever. It was an “interesting” experiment, etc., and we’ll miss a few comments (the ones on Wonkette), but overall, it’s going to be wonderful to never ever again read some ignorant subliterate racist typing with one finger about the “n____r’s lovers” who are, of course, “biggot biased assholes.” MORE »

SAD COMMENTERS PLZ TRY AGAIN! Are you one of the unlucky people who never got your new commenter account working? Try again now! Some kind of secret fix has been done by the Experts somewhere. Thanks, and sorry.

Ah, here it is, gamesetmatch for McCain — Obama’s been caught kidnapping/fathering black children in French Hawaii! We knew something was up with this slimeball. If you want to see more spy photos from this man’s private vacation, the Huffington Post has a nice collection. What a family! When we look at this picture, all negativity and trauma briefly drowns out from the world; every problem has been momentarily solved and there are no more questions to ask. When a HuffPo commenter looks at this picture, however, (s)he types, “Awww … how sweet. BO takes yet ANOTHER vacation while another country goes under. Good thing HRC is on the trail saving his inexperienced a**!!!” You’d have to be a damn fool to believe these nice vacation photos wouldn’t become attack fodder. [HuffPo]

You know how Barack Obama’s people have the whole “Fight the Smears” thing, where you copy and paste some text that says, “I’m very disappointed in you, Barack Obama does not worship the Shark God even though he is from Hawaii” and you spam it all over the place? Well, about FOUR MILLION YEARS after the Democrats came up with this crazy idea that they could “harness the power of blogs” or whatever, John McCain’s Internet wizards have finally unveiled their own version called, let’s see, Spread the Word. Because they are Capitalist Pigs, they offer material incentives to their “volunteers,” such as three minutes in heaven with Miss Buffalo Chip in exchange for spamming 4,000 liberal blogs with claptrap. MORE »

COMMENT OF THE DAY: “I remember when Batman told everyone to go shopping and to fly more to fight the Joker. Also, when he gave up golf for a few weeks. That was so brave to do, in this time of terror and war.” [George W. Bush Is Exactly Like Batman]

COMMENTERS ARE RUINING THE WORLD: Not you people, of course. We mean everybody else. Here’s Daniel Libit’s Politico story about the Age of Wacky Commenters, featuring some friendly words from your editor. [Politico]