• AN ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL PIECE OF NEWS: Barack Obama will be the first President since Grover Cleveland to miss the annual Gridiron Club Dinner, where the most powerful journalists force their best friend politicians to sing ‘n’ dance for them, in private. It is the worst, most openly corrupt manifestation of the Villager mentality and an embarrassment to the nation. Barack Obama will not attend because his daughters will be on spring break, and he’s choosing to spend a few days with them in Chicago. [Fishbowl DC]

You know what is weird? When the journalists who have been objectively reporting your newses start taking jobs with the new president, and you begin to wonder if maybe they were lying to you all the time with their biased “facts” and “analysis.” It’s weird until you consider that nobody in media has jobs anymore, so of course if Barack Obama says “Hey would you like to tout the benefits of light rail for me?” you will jump at that in a heartbeat. MORE »

Aww, Chuck Todd accepted the most frustrating job in media — White House correspondent — only to discover that it is the most frustrating job in media: “Obviously, I’m one of the newbies here in the White House press corps so maybe I’m unfamiliar with the ways of how this place works. I have to say, nothing is more frustrating than covering an an actual event here at the White House if you at all believe in anything remotely having to do with the First Amendment.” Usually this type of article — “Employed journalists covering the presidency whine about how much trouble they have getting information” — causes migraines, but Chuck Todd’s such a nice guy, and we’re sorry that he has such a sad. Why won’t the White House be nice to Chuck Todd? [First Read]

Ooh look pretty pictures! The famous journalistic news-reporting organization Vogue profiles your Katie Couric, your Rachel Maddow, and wait, who’s this? We seem to have seen this one somewhere, recently… If you click through to Comments and scroll down just enough, you can now see six (6) images of Campbell Brown on this web site: top, side, and middle of the screen, plus the “live” Ms. Brown and her two posters in the Vogue photo. (YOU’RE WELCOME.) Campbell Brown is the Saparmurat Niyazov of American cable news. [Vogue]

We are sitting on our hands, in a cold sweat, staring at the floor, WAITING for Marc Ambinder to decide on our request to join the sexiest fanciest Facebook club ever that we found today. Must be worthy… must be worthy. You can try and join too! Are you “working on” the presidential transition? HONOR CODE, PEOPLE. Ambinder will sniff you out if you’re lying! Apparently the Ambinder Transition Sex Club is also looking for a social chair. We nominate Intern Juli. IF WE EVEN GET IN! [Facebook]

• SUCKS TO BE JOE KLEIN: HA HA HA, whiny Time conventional wisdom scribe Joe Klein has been banned from both the McCain and Palin planes because why waste a good seat on such a predictable man? Best McCain-Palin campaign move in months. [Michael Calderone]

Oh rats, we discovered unemployed blogger Meghan McCain’s YouTube channel and were all set to post “A Children’s Treasury of Comical Meghan McCain YouTube Videos,” but they are all SO BORING. Half of them are about visiting deformed people in third-world countries. Who cares about those people! (At least they have excuses for being unemployed, btw.) Here’s the only decent one, and it’s five months old. It documents the famous Sedona barbecue the McCains held for their journalist friends back in March. MORE »

Yesterday, John McCain made a gaffe that no one cared about: he referred to the Czech Republic as “Czechoslovakia,” which is actually correct, but only if you think time froze in 1992. Does John McCain think this? Because today, for the second day in a row, he referred to that same country as “Czechoslovakia.” It turns out he has been making this same mistake regularly for most of his post-Cold War political career, but since he gives the Journalistic Reporters apple-flavored lollipops on his comfy bus every day, they choose not to write about it. The Main Stream Media’s inability to mention this exact gaffe, in fact, was something George Bush complained about during the 2000 primary season. And look how that turned out for him! MORE »

Despite the fact that he now leads the Democratic nomination race by every conceivable metric, Barack Obama will not be the candidate running against John McCain. Legions of Clinton die-hards will turn out in West Virginia tomorrow to stick it to MSNBC, Robert Reich, non-hard-working white people, and other members of the sexist cabal who want Hillary to throw in the towel before she has humiliated herself in all 50 states (plus Guam, Samoa, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Tatooine). MORE »

Barack Obama doesn’t just ignore the gay and lesbian press. He ignores reporters of every hue, creed, nationality, and sexual preference! This is because he believes that every member of the Journalistic Profession deserves the right to be completely and summarily dismissed out of hand. He will not answer questions about Hamas when he wants to eat his waffles; he will not hold a press conference even though he says he will. He is basically that no goodnik boyfriend who always stands you up at the last minute, when he isn’t refusing to answer questions about Hamas over waffles. Does he understand that the press might quit polishing his knob if he keeps up this irresponsible behavior? [Political Ticker]

President George W. Bush continued to waste his last year in office Saturday, as he hosted a reception for Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen at his Crawford ranch. As they were eating lunch and discussing the… tense?… relations between Denmark and the United States, some batshit redneck lady was threatening to shoot Danish journalists for trespassing across the street. Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen was not harmed in the incident. MORE »