First of all, Sarah Palin, go to HELL for ruining your editor’s day of patriotic rest and BBQ. Second, why did you really quit, crazy lady? We admit to “jumping to conclusions” (trying to hurry up and get back outside to our cocktails and friends), but the story may be more complicated than “Sarah Palin is a sociopath who will just quit being governor of Alaska THREE-AND-A-HALF YEARS before the next presidential election, just to show her, uhm, Leadership Credentials, which means constantly yelling at David Letterman about a joke she couldn’t comprehend.” But there are so many more crazy theories about America’s craziest Alaskan Anger Bear, the snowbilly grifter and strip-mall Ice Queen of Wasilla. Let’s examine them, together! MORE »

The Virgin Palin, Our Lady of Eternal Anger, gave birth to the New Jesus at some point last year — or not, who knows, and now Andrew Sullivan just cares about Iran (which is a good thing!) so we’ll never find out the truth — and ever since it has been both a Cardinal/Venial Sin and Sharia Law that no mortal shall “desecrate” an image of the Sacred One … no one but Sarah Palin herself, because Allah both allows and encourages the use of the Holy Infant as a cheap political prop as long as such cruel hackery is performed by the Virgin Palin herself. MORE »

NEW YORKER STAFFERS QUITE FAMILIAR WITH EXCLUSIVE NEIGHBORHOOD OF MARK SANFORD’S MISTRESS: Sparkin’ Sanford’s Buenos Aires’ pied-à-terre is in a rather lovely area where the better people congregate. “The well-kept doorman buildings feature underground parking garages and balconies. It’s winter now in Argentina, but in summer you can smell the animals in the zoo across the street from my grandfather’s balcony—and from Maria’s place as well, no doubt. Guido’s bar and restaurant at 2843 is probably the street’s most iconic feature, a quirky Italian place with no actual menu, where you are at the mercy of your waiter. The surrounding neighborhood, Palermo, is a fashionable residential neighborhood featuring a large namesake park, a major shopping district, bars and restaurants. We’ve yet to find out much about Sanford’s mistress, but the charms of her neighborhood are obvious.” [New Yorker]

We don’t know what this “emo” stuff is really about, either — it’s just boys who dress like The Strokes and wear Robert Smith eyeliner and whine-yell a bunch of misogynistic nonsense about their hurt feelings, right? How the hell this goes back to Ian MacKaye, we cannot even pretend to understand. And being a slave to your banal Emotions is about as far from the Path as you can get, but whatever, this is America. And, according to cultural anthropologist David Rees, disgraced blabbermouth Mark Sanford is an emo kid! Look for his new album on MySpace next week, Tears of Argentina (Maria), by his vanity project “the sparkin’ thing.” BREAKING UPDATE: Or is Mark Sanford actually Jude Law from a Kate Winslet movie we never saw? David Denby sure has a comment, about this comparison! [David Rees]

Republican star Mark Sanford pretty much came clean during his press conference! That is a rare thing with these people, and as a result, liberals everywhere are oohing and aahing, “Oh it’s true love he wasn’t even fucking street urchin boys as far as we know, he should just ditch his awful wife and children,” etc. MORE »

Really, come on, what the hell? South Carolina state senator and fellow Republican Jake Knotts has this to say about Mark Sanford’s secret sexytime: “I found out that he was taking frequent trips at odd times of the night in a South Carolina Law Enforcement Division car with no security. He would be driving. I got wind that he had taken another one of these types of capers last Thursday, and that nobody knew who he was with.” [CNN]

Anybody who says the Associated Press is not the most important wire service with “AP” as its initials just plain hates good journalism. Following up on yesterday’s scorcher about how there were five (5) other governors who did something vaguely weird once, over the course of American state history, today AP headquarters in New York offers up what just might be the most cogent yet blistering assessment of the Mark Sanford “Argentine Firecracker” scandal thus far: Sanford is a Republican governor doing lame, creepy things … just like all those other Republican governors trying to make a name for themselves in the GOP’s final days. MORE »

Nevada’s flagrant heterosexual senator, John Ensign, told his Republican pals today at lunch that he was very sorry he had sex with some lady he should not have had sex with. He was “very contrite, very sincere,” said one of his colleagues, and as penance Ensign immediately retired to the nearest public bathroom for gay diaper sex with a 17-year-old page in a panda suit. [The Hill]

South Carolina granola hippie Mark Sanford just couldn’t take the pressure, man, so he put on his Tevas and headed up to the mountains to clear his head. Nothing like some Kinhin walking meditation to get the fear of The Man — that man, the prez — out of your soul. At least out here on the Appalachian Trail, mean old Barack Obama with his suits and his money and his power trips can’t bum you out …. unless uptight Obama is even using his Power Trip Stimulus Money on the trail itself. MORE »

We knew there had to be a “paying off some 19-year-old boy” aspect of this dull John Ensign story, and here it is: A Republican committee paid Nevada Senator John Ensign’s illicit girlfriend’s son $5,400 during the SAME EXACT TIME Ensign and the lady were humping. This teen-ager was given the dirty GOP money for “research policy consulting,” which is even more bogus-sounding that our business expenses. ALSO: Our friends at the Las Vegas Gleaner inform us that Ensign was putting his peen into this lady before he was legally separated from his wife. MORE »

How are the Republican politicians doing with the email today? Not too good, as usual! It’s a busy Monday, as one Republican official already got busted doing racist anti-Michelle Obama stuff on the Facebook, and now we’re learning about some super-funny racist emails sent out by a Tennessee GOP legislative staffer for Republican state senator Diane Black. Let’s meet the charming Sherri Goforth, who sent the image above to god knows how many people because, ha, a Negro in the White House? MORE »