Your Wonkette despises leaving the house, ever, except for such things as food, but even that can frequently come in the form of home delivery these days, what with the Internet and all. But it is Holiday season, alas, and we feel obligated to cover DC’s many terrible holiday parties! Last night, your Wonkette, along with visiting college friend operative “Stephen,” went to two (2) parties that had absolutely nothing to do with The Holidays. The first was a “send-off to the White House” shindig at the Hawk and Dove for Obama’s fierce new press secretary, Robert Gibbs! This was almost certainly a “party crash;” we had absolutely no business being there. The second was a 40th anniversary party or something for libertarian deathrag Reason, which was just a bunch of drunk Cato Institute staffers from Norway getting belligerent at a filthy bar in Dupont. Endless tales of treachery and violence follow. MORE »

In the tank ABC reporter Jake Tapper has spoken to a purportedly “well-respected” tax attorney who believes that Sarah Palin will have to declare that $150,000 worth of fancy convention clothes as income, because her excuse that they were “borrowed” from the RNC is kind of, well, wrong. MORE »

• OH DON’T MIND US, LADIES: Hey Matt Jaffe and Rick Klein of ABC “News,” did we st-st-stutter when we wrote this story like a million years ago with “Must Credit Wonkette And Its Tipster, ‘John’” in the headline? No, and now “John” is sobbing, probably. JAKE TAPPER would’ve credited us because HE’S THE MAN and ADORABLE. [ABC "Lose"]

ABC News Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper was on to Barack Obama’s resurgent smoking habit months ago, but the Obama campaign covered for the ever-more-desperate candidate as he wove a web of deception that eventually ensnared the nation in cancer and betrayal. Way back in August Obama was wandering around the Capitol reeking of smoke, and what did Obama’s people say when Concerned Jake asked about it? MORE »

Congratulations to ABC’s square-jawed Jake Tapper, who, despite his on-going hostage crisis, has snared himself a wife, and an item in the prestigious New York Times “Vows” section. Tapper married Jen Brown of Planned Parenthood, thus justifying any and all claims of liberal bias in ABC’s reporting. Jen’s “father owns and operates US 1 Dollar, an independent general merchandise store in Lenexa, Kan.,” a sentence we are pretty sure has never appeared in the Vows section before this weekend. Good luck, you crazy kids! And send us some wedding pictures, we couldn’t make it out to Kansas City. MORE »

First they put the White House press corps in a trailer.

And now the toilet is clogged.

What do the reporters who work closest to President Bush on a daily basis have in common with refugees from Hurricane Katrina?

-Mark Silva, Chicago Tribune White House correspondent. MORE »

A visibly tired President Bush, back from his surprise visit to Iraq, just concluded an hour-long press conference. It took place in the Rose Garden, and most of the questions focused on Iraq. MORE »

You need keen eyes to spot celebrities in this town — unless, of course, they herald their own presence, as did Bill Cosby and Thomas Friedman this week. It’s also hard to keep a low profile if you’re sporting a shock of silver hair, like Anderson Cooper, or have a nuclear-family-sized security squad, like Anthony Williams.

George Stephanopoulos must have a fetish for being Wonk’d, because he can’t seem to stay hidden. But even discretion doesn’t work all the time, as Condi Rice found out. It’s also totally impossible to be inconspicuous if you’re 7′2″ — and Dikembe Mutombo doesn’t even try.

We all know they’re dying to be seen, so just help feed their celebrit-ego by sending us all your sightings, by email, with “Wonk’d” or “Sighting” in the subject line (along with of the name of the spotted celeb). On behalf of all the dying-for-attention famous people out there, we thank you.

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Their blogging can be just as random as ADD-afflicted as anyone else’s, dammit! MORE »

• Lack of bias for thee but not for me: Washington Times reporter (and Christian) Bill Sammon believes “Most stories…have a moral dimension, and ignoring that dimension misrepresents the news.” [Christian Examiner via Romenesko]
• CNN lost viewers under Jon Klein. You know what this means: MORE COOPER. [TVNewser]
• ABC-purchased Grand Theft Auto changes Jake Tapper’s life, providing street cred and razor sharp instincts to hide when the scent of pigs is in the air. [Down and Dirty via FishbowlDC]
• NBC names new news division prez… and they’re going to look into this whole “news on the web” thing. Also CBS Evening News gets a producer. Is that still on? [NYT, AP]
• Bizarre disappearing John Huey mugs. [Gawker]

ABC’s Jake Tapper nudges James Dobson to come a little more clean about his top-secret-cross-my-heart-hope-to-die conversation with Karl Rove. Dobson, as you may recall, claimed that the information he heretofore could not reveal was that Harriet Miers is an evangelical Christian. And here we thought she was a man. In any case, Dobson pointed to his Fox News interview the day of the nomination as an example of his decorum: “And that is the last time that I said that I had information that was confidential and that I really couldn’t talk about.” But what did he say? Tapper does that reporter thing and discovers:

[G]o back to that Fox News transcript … Namely, Dobson says “In her long career, she has been willing to stand up against the American Bar Association with regard to the policy on abortion. That took a lot of courage. She has — she is a conservative Christian.” MORE »