As anyone who has seen White Nights can attest, there is one force in the world more dangerous and powerful than love. Or democracy. Wonkette operative “Ivan” sends us this image captured by the New York Times, in which we see secret agents smuggling this highly volatile substance into a major metropolitan area in Pakistan. MORE »

Are you reading this early Monday morning? Chances are you don’t have the Presidents Day Holiday off from work. Congratulations, because Wonkette has to work, too. Election 2008 will not pause for some pointless remembrance of a couple of dead presidents who founded the country or started the Civil War or whatever. We have cars to buy, on credit, but at some kind of potential discount! (Sorry about everything, George Washington and Abe Lincoln.) [Why Tuesday?]

This morning at the frightening CPAC conference, our favorite President George W. Bush destroyed the Democrats:

“They tend to think Washington has the answers to our problems,” he went on. “They tend to believe our country only succeeds under the expansive federal government. They tend to be suspicious of America’s exercise of global leadership — unless, of course, we get a permission slip from international organizations.”

Those damn liberals — first they want to take over the Washingtons, then they want to find “answers to our problems”! Vote Republican, and we’ll blow up the Capitol and create a free market over the splayed limbs of Russ Feingold. [NYT]

John McCain made the brilliant decision to let his batshit crazy 95-year-old mother, Roberta, go on the teevee again — probably unmedicated — and say some more senile old lady things. For this, we applaud him. Last time we heard from the oldest lady in the world, she criticized Mitt Romney for being a Mormon, and we laughed! This time she says that no one likes her son and that she has no idea what she’s talking about. God, this woman never misses the mark! MORE »

For better or worse, it’s officially time to shut up about the Republican race being “wide open.” Either WALNUTS! will ride his momentum to the nomination or Mittens will charge just enough Super Duper Tuesday delegates to his AmEx. Fred died yesterday, Rudy is in sixth place, Ron Paul is a raging hobo and — as all the kids on the Internet are talking about today — Mike “God” Huckabee is broke and worthless. Everything the pundits said was bad about the long-term prospects of “Huckaboomania” turned out worse. MORE »

Presidential candidate for the Republicans Rep. Duncan Hunter has exited the race. We’ll miss his constant terrorist chatter about 864-mile walls he would build and Chinese people cheating at life. Hey, Duncan, yeah you, please, one second of your time, just hear us out: Haha bye. [CNN]

As far as Tom “Riding the Botox Needle” DeLay is concerned, John McCain is a betraying, soulless, amoral and unprincipled piece of shit, and DeLay is really intimately familiar with betraying, soulless amoral and unprincipled pieces of shit because he owns 3 dozen mirrors and masturbates daily in front of every one of them. He’s also not a fan of Rudy Giuliani because Rudy looks better in a dress and gets more ass then he does. If either of them wins the primaries, he’s staying home. Unsurprisingly, he’s a big fan of the Huckles. [The Hill, via Schecter]

P.S. Santorum hates McCain too. Damn, Walnuts is starting to look kind of hot.

Ok, see, Barry, this is how this thing is supposed to work. You’ve very craftily built your political appeal by not appearing to be a politician despite being a politician, and that’s not an easy thing. You talk about Hope(TM) and Change(TM) and you play the nice guy, the argument-soothing middle child, and then you win stuff and, you know, good for you for playing the game well. Your staff, though, as I’ve mentioned before, needs to get on board your “nice” train or stop talking to the press. A case in point is your spokesman Bill Burton.

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You know why John Edwards is lagging behind in the polls? It’s not because he hasn’t held political office in several years, or that he’s running on a pseudo-populist and somewhat depressing message as an incredibly rich man when all anyone wants to hear these days is about Change(TM), or that he was never running particularly high in the national polls as soon as it was clear that Hillary and Obama were gonna run. Nope! John Edwards is doing poorly because the press doesn’t pay him enough attention. If he could just get his picture taken more and if they would just stop harping already on the fact that he’s polling behind Obama and Clinton, he would obviously be doing better. Aww, honey, we’ll pay you some attention! Does this feel better? [CNN]

Campaigning in South Carolina today, Mittens made an effort to distinguish his obviously beyond-reproach campaign by trying to point out to reporters that McCain’s got lobbyists, those bloodsuckers of the American political establishment, on the payroll. His little presser got sidetracked, though, when a reporter pointed out that one of his prominent (unpaid) advisers, Ron Kaufman, works for the prominent lobbying firm Dutko Worldwide. They then fuss and fight and, at the end, some batty old lady tells Mittens that he’s ugly. I just think someone probably needs a nap. [CBS, Politico]

Vietnam Veterans Against McCain is this group distributing fliers in South Carolina about how John McCain is a traitor and screwed over other soldiers in Vietnam while being held and tortured by the North Vietnamese. It’s run by Gerard W. Kiley who also hated John Kerry in 2004 because, apparently, Mr. Kiley is the only heroic Vietnam veteran ever. It’s members include… Gerard W. Kiley of Garnerville, New York. So, it’s really more like A Vietnam Veteran Against McCain, backed by a bunch of money from other people who really don’t like McCain but didn’t realize that one pissed off old guy in Rockland County, New York does not a good movement make and that occasionally reporters fact-check. [NY Times]