Rick Warren is a big shot evangelical preacher at a 600-trillion-person church in Southern California, meaning he’s also the puppetmaster behind American politics. You may remember his “Saddleback Forum” over the summer when he forced Obama and McCain — both of whose personal cell numbers he keeps — to babble about Jesus in his church, individually, while the other was being molested by rabid frogs in a Cone of Silence. Well guess what people, he’s now invited himself to give the wingnut invocation at Obama’s inauguration melee. This news does not please America’s many homosexuals. MORE »

Someday Andrea Mitchell will publish her memoirs and it will be the most rollicking account of a sassy girl reporter navigating our nation’s halls of power since Barbara Walters’ book came out. It will be all about crazy three-ways with Objectivists and that time she shared a spliff with Spiro Agnew. But in the meantime, everybody is constantly being mean to Andrea Mitchell because she’s always shilling for the other guy. MORE »

In Heaven, a secret cabal meets every Shrove Tuesday to match up nutjob religious leaders with the presidential candidates they will embarrass the most. John McCain’s assigned kook is pastor John Hagee, an Evangelical preacher who loves Jews, the apocalypse, and long walks on the beach, and hates Mondays, broccoli, and Catholics. So it shocked everyone today when he acted like a complete hypocrite by refusing to stand by his crazy remarks about our papist brothers and sisters. MORE »

Remember that “size of a bus” spy satellite that is now plummeting out of control and will pretty soon smash into Earth, possibly killing off the dinosaurs? The Pentagon now says that the monstrous hunk of space garbage is probably going to hit America — possibly Mexico or Canada, but the government’s karmic probability models say the USA “deserves” it. [The Register/K.C. Star]

Ted Haggard, previously mentioned here, just fucking resigned from the National Association of Evangelicals due to the rumors of his employing a gay escort named Mike Jones (and doing meth). Jones claims to have saved voicemails from the pastor, who still denies it all, but this is still weird fucking news. MORE »

Illustration from Robert Lanham’s The Sinner’s Guide to the Evangelical Right, which is an awesome book. MORE »

* Senior Democrats complain they have failed to seize momentum ahead of November elections. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.): “We seem to be losing our voice when it comes to the basic things people worry about.” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.): “I think we have been very good at saying no, but not good enough at saying yes.” [NYT]
* Bush’s tribute of Coretta Scott King “marks the latest step in the administration’s effort to repair its frayed relations with many black civil rights and political leaders”; televised service used as a platform to criticize administration’s policies. [WP, NYT, LAT]
* Lawmakers and legal experts question why the administration doesn’t eavesdrop domestically. [WP]
* Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.), chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, calls for Congressional inquiry of domestic eavesdropping. [NYT]
* Most of Bush’s State of the Union and budget proposals have been rejected in the past by the Senate. [WP]
* Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) is renting an apartment from a lobbyist; conflicts of interests seen. [WP]
* Jack Abramoff scandal is unrelenting for the White House. [W$J]
* Jockeying for 2008 is well under way. Chuck Todd: “Presidential money is almost like the housing bubble. It’s growing at such an astronomical rate, you think it can’t get any bigger.” [USAT, USAT]

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* Senate votes 72 to 25 to hold roll call on Samuel Alito’s confirmation today; Sen. Kerry defends his filibuster attempt. [WP, NYT, LAT, WT, USAT]
* Bush will promote alternative fuels and nuclear power in tonight’s State of the Union. Senior official: “What’s interesting about this discussion is that he isn’t talking about oil exploration at home. Nobody wants to get bogged down in those arguments again.” [NYT, USAT]
* 76% of Americans deem health care “an absolute priority” for ‘06 and only 28% support maintaining the current force in Iraq, according to new WSJ-NBC poll. Bush’s approval rating is steady at 39% as leadership and honesty numbers have fallen over the past year; 63% say Democrats lack a “clear agenda.” [WSJ, MSNBC]
* Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) questions Attorney General Alberto Gonzales‘ statements on warrentless eavesdropping. During his confirmation, Gonzales said the practice was “not the policy of the agenda of this president” and offered to tell Congress if that changed. [WP]
* Administration official explains White House strategy on Alito: “Any time they are yelling, preaching, lecturing, and you are cool and calm and breathing deep, you are winning. What that means on television sets where the American people are watching this is, you look good and they look bad. It was the central operating premise.” [NYT]

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