Wonkette

How did Hillary Clinton, who’s been locked in her Washington home on a barbiturate bender for the last 48 hours with the press clamoring at the gates, and Barack Obama, who commands an even larger, consolidated national press corps now, manage to meet privately (for hot bottled water) at that senator gal’s house last night? Easy! An unmarked van sneaked into Hillary’s side entrance (natch) and kidnapped her, while Obama took his reporters to the airport, locked them on a plane, and drove hastily to the meeting, where he violently ripped the duct tape from Hillary’s mouth and put her through bamboo-under-the-fingernails torture. And the press missed it! MORE »

The very idea of “House Speaker Pelosi” isn’t exactly comforting to the shrinking, hysterical Far Right, but they should take comfort in the fact that liberals in San Francisco think she’s a sellout. MORE »

Today’s come to us from California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, courtesy the LA Times:
In fairness, she was just making fun of Jim Bunning. MORE »

Just because someone is on TV, has run for president, or whatever, doesn’t mean they know how to dress themselves properly. Case in point: Ralph Nader. It’s just not that cold out, Ralph.

Candy Crowley might need a few wardrobe tips too — and a reality check. While we’re giving unsolicited advice, how about a refresher driving class for Bob Novak? It seems like he needs it.

There’s still more Wonk’d to come this week, so you have a few more days to fatten our inbox with sightings. Just put “Wonk’d” or “Sighting” in the subject line, and we’ll publish all the hot fresh spottings on Friday.

Check out the first installment of this week’s sightings, after the jump.

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Namely, the environment immediately surrounding her multimillion-dollar mansion, high in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco.

We previously linked to real estate porn of Senator Feinstein’s palatial residence. We now learn, via the San Francisco Chronicle, that recent landscaping changes by DiFi have infuriated city officials and her neighbors.

Details appear after the jump.

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Having finally recovered from Prom, Chatology returned to her perch on the couch to sit through 3.5 hours of bone-grindingly obvious talking points. We’re used to butt-punishing workouts, but this is not our favorite among them. That said, a surprisingly sexy Sunday morning. ALSO: Can’t get enough of that wacky Bush impressionist? We can.

Top Topics:
• Michael Hayden, spook or just creep? Rep. Pete Hoekstra makes news by negation: Hayden “is the wrong man at the wrong place at the wrong time.” McCain is more loving.
• ‘06 sickness/Congressional “culture of corruption,” with Republicans showing Reaganesque — which is to say, delusional — optimism.
• Goss’s departure: Not did he jump or was he pushed but rather, “Pushed, shoved, or run over with a truck and stomped on the face?”

Quotes to live by:
• Saxby Chambliss on Hayden: He is “just a class individual” (as someone who questioned the patriotism of a paraplegic, he knows class!)
• George Stephanopolous makes right wing bias hunters’ heads explode: “That was not one of the top four pieces of legislation that Speaker Pelosi…ah, I don’t know why I have that stuck in my head today…”
• Chris Wallace masters the obvious: “I don’t have to tell you, you are the chairman of the intelligence committee.”
• George Will teases the Kennedy story: “One reason this story touched all of this city’s erogenous zones…”
• Bill Kristol looks on the bright side: “I’m looking forward to getting more sex into this scandal.”
• David Brooks auditions to be Maureen Dowd: “This has more layers than a Tom Clancy novel.”

Your full-on weekend chat soup after the jump.

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* Diane Feinstein is richer than you. [SFluxe] MORE »

* Reliable Source: Federal judge accepts invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against Jessica Cutler; a former lover claims her blog caused “severe emotional distress, humiliation, embarassment and anguish”. . . Sen. Barbara Mikulski collects winnings from bet with Sen. Elizabeth Dole on women’s NCAA championship. . . Laurence Fishburne sighted at Cafe Milano. [WP]
* Lloyd Grove’s Lowdown: Alec Baldwin would rather sleep with Sen. Dianne Feinstein than Ann Coulter: “With Coulter, we’d have sex and I’d have to jump out the window. I wouldn’t even get dressed.” Replies Coulter, “That’s the only reason I can think of for wanting to have sex with Alec Baldwin.”. . . Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame plan to leave town, but not before Cheney, Rove, and Libby do. [NYDN]
* Page Six: Oddsmaker puts Hillary’s chances in ‘08 at 3:1 and McCain’s at 6:1. [NYP]

As you may have heard in our Morning Roundup, the seven member subgroup of the Senate Intelligence Committee received their first White House briefing on the Bush’s domestic wiretapping nonsense. The Washington Post article on the briefing contained one section that immediately gave us a case of the WTFs.

Members of the Senate subcommittee — which, along with Roberts and Rockefeller, includes Republicans Mike DeWine (Ohio), Orrin G. Hatch (Utah) and Christopher S. Bond (Mo.) and Democrats Carl M. Levin (Mich.) and Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) — will not be able to share what they learn with the other eight members of the intelligence panel, according to rules the White House has proposed.

That is the foofiest fucking idea we’ve ever heard! How can a debate about intelligence priorities take place if the entire committee isn’t on an equal footing? Are the non-committee members going to have to sit in smaller chairs, too?

Here is how we imagine the future of the Senate Intelligence Committee:

[sorry, only super special Wonketteers can read after the jump]

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This just in, courtesy of a tipster: MORE »