• THE MOST ANNOYING PROSPECT FOR TOMORROW AND ITS AFTERMATH: It’s not that Republicans could win two governorships in a miserable atmosphere for incumbents/incumbent parties that have had to make tough state budget decisions in the last year, or that strange circumstances in NY-23 are handing that seat to some wingnut unaffiliated with either major party — it’s the gloating we’ll have to endure as the media constructs its latest “GOP comeback” narrative: “A Republican sweep of the races the media has chosen to focus on (there’s another House special in California that Dems are almost certain to win) will doubtless be spun as a rebuke of President Barack Obama and his ‘liberal’ governing agenda.” [MoJo Blog]

Good news, Washington humans: the rich right-wing owner of the POLITICO, Robert Albritton, is preparing to launch a local news website, with the admirable goal of further destroying the Washington Post. (Although the Washington Post has great local news blogs and reporters!) And just in case you were wondering, yes: “The site will cover D.C and the suburbs, and echo Politico’s aggressive, scoop-oriented focus.” Your Wonkette editors have been brainstorming, furiously. [TNR]

Do you want to know the most important and controversial news story ever in world history? Courtesy of the Washington press corps: Barack Obama does a lot of teevee interviews to talk about his policies, and he might be “overexposing” himself this way. (Can anyone explain what the dickens this “overexposure” argument could possibly fucking mean? People do realize that you aren’t *required* to watch television shows you don’t want to watch, or television in general, right?) Right. But where there’s epic tragedy there’s room for High Satire, and who better to write that than the World’s Worst Writer, Washington Post sociopath Richard Cohen. Remember: he is “a funny guy” and knows most things about humor. (No but seriously, [re-]read that linked 2006 column if you haven’t done so in a while.) MORE »

Ugh SO CONFUSING. So are these healthcare-focused town hall meetings across the nation 1) being constantly disrupted by belligerent, gun-toting angry nutballs or 2) the site of reasoned and civil discussion among people who, for the most part, are acting like grownups? MORE »

Here, watch this while the News Trolls come up with “actual reporting” for us to make fun of. Why was Stephen Colbert sending emails to Mark Sanford’s spokesman when he knows that Keith Olbermann’s mother recently died? The man has no shame. [The Colbert Report]

South Carolina’s embarrassing Argentine love-tango scandal may have made its governor look bad, but two parties have emerged from this sad nightmare smelling like little roses: Jenny Sanford, and The State newspaper. Yesterday the paper released a pack of hilariously sycophantic requests from various media outlets to Governor Sanford’s office suggesting that — !!! — sometimes reporters and media types imply that their subjects will get favorable coverage if they’ll just respond to a goddamn interview request. MORE »

Throughout the history of American journalism, reporters have upheld one vital standard: asking the tough questions and holding to account the most powerful person in the nation, which is to say, the First Lady. But is our national legacy of unbiased investigative East Wing reporting suddenly in peril because some black gals are writing about Michelle Obama? MORE »

You may have viewed this film on other Internet blogs, but if not, prepare to cry. We have attempted several times in the past week to write about all of the mean news journalists — chiefly Dana Milbank, a dreadful clown — accusing HuffPo’s Nico Pitney of asking Barack Obama a “planted question,” from the Iran, but it gets us all hot and bothered, so just watch the fun video, right up there. [YouTube]

If you want to weather the recession in style, there’s no better bet than serving our nation’s ever-diminishing population of wingnuts. As more Americans climb aboard B-Rock NObama’s Socialism ‘n’ Poetry Jams Express, frustrated conservatives have flocked to a few of the nation’s last reputable wingnut media outlets for soothing words about how right they still are about everything even if “the news” says they’re wrong. MORE »

TONIGHT, D.C. SPARKLES! “Barack Obama loves our nation’s reporters in D.C. He made jokes about them, but at the end, he proved he cared about America’s Newspapers. This president may be a hero, after all.” [AOL Politics Daily]

DOES OBAMA HATE OUR IMPORTANT NEWSPAPERS? “Last week, this president — a mere child in diapers when my generation was enjoying civil rights and the Beatles — hosted a press conference that was a vulgar deformation of the term. Instead of taking questions from the White House reporters from our most important newspapers, Obama led a rudderless free-for-all in which seemingly any miscreant who wandered in off the street could pose a question to the leader of the free world.” [AOL Political Machine]