• What is ‘Max Baucus’? We simply do not know. [Matt Yglesias]
• Today’s RedState lecture: “How Limbaugh’s embodiment of MLK’s dream changed my life.” Please take notes because you’ll be tested on this material at the end of the semester. [RedState]
• How will Jonah Goldberg survive the impending zombie apocalypse?! Hiding in a spider hole at the bottom of Lake Superior might work, but then again, Lake Superior freezes in the winter and zombies can definitely definitely walk on ice and oh no oh no oh no no NO zombies zombies ZOMBIES! [The Corner]
• There are many sappy, vomit-inducing political ads that come and go in these United States, but Gavin Newsom’s takes the vomit cake. [The Caucus]
• Barack Obama grinds with a devastating Latina and then abruptly flees the dance floor because honestly he’s a married man and this is just torture. [Swampland]

It’s been a while since we checked in with our favorite Internet Political Illustrator, David Dees. He doesn’t seem very “hopeful” about this Barack Obama character! Then again, only Ron Paul could actually save our nation, but the New World Order had Doctor Paul killed! So sad. MORE »

Forty years ago tonight, Washington burned, baby, burned — just as so many other cities burned after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. And it only took about 40 years to fix up some of the destroyed neighborhoods along H Street NE, 14th and U, and various other chunks of the District that ended up looking like Hiroshima after the Bomb. And now Wonkette’s own Liz Glover says the National Guard actually burnt D.C. to the ground, not the freaked-out rioters. MORE »

EARLIER: Did Hillary Clinton Really ‘Shake Hands’ With MLK When She Was 14?

Hillary Clinton just gave a speech exploiting the assassination of MLK somberly remembering the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and she added a (new to us) detail: Hillary claims she saw the Reverend King speak and even shook his hand, when she was 14 years old. Wonkette operatives “Gary & Marilyn” ask, “Doesn’t her attendance at such an event sound unlikely for a Goldwater Girl? I can’t find my copy of her autobiography, think that would have been a memorable event she would have written about at the time … so I’m putting this in your capable fact-checkers’ hands.” MORE »

Hey, Barack Obama, we have rules in this country. Rules like, You cannot go around quoting the “I Have A Dream” speech, or the Declaration of Independence, or that weird/wrong thing FDR used to say (”The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”) to try to soothe the desperately poor and angry people who were this close to “seizing the means of production.” And that’s why Hillary’s campaign is sending everybody these shocking YouTubes proving that another black person has also trotted out a couple of patriotic chestnuts as proof that campaign speeches really do change the world. MORE »

Uh, that was the break? Was that even two minutes? What about the old people who need a little time to use the facilities? What about your editor who can see the liquor store from his window? Anyway, here we are, solving America’s problems, around the old mill table. MORE »

After more than a year of this endless 2008 campaign, we’ve finally got a debate with the claws out. This South Carolina audience is getting a first-hand up-close answer to the question, “Can Hillary kill people with her words?” See here for Part One, and let’s get dirty with Part Two. MORE »

Wow, are we back in South Carolina again? And we’re going to be talking about race and the racial issues, is that right? Of course, that was the supposed subject of the last Dem debate, too. But that was in Nevada, and everybody knows teevee signals can’t reach from Nevada to South Carolina. So let’s do it again! MORE »

Once every year, white people in politics pretend to care about Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated four decades ago when his racial-equality preaching drifted over to the far more dangerous economic-equality preaching. It was one thing to let the black people sit wherever on the bus — white people had cars — but it’s a whole different story when you’re talking about taking the rich people’s stuff! And tonight in South Carolina, the Democrats will debate who can recite the most noble things about MLK. As a result, blacks might just “go Democrat” in 2008. We’ll be here with liveblogging action at 8 p.m. Eastern. DO NOT MISS IT UNLESS YOU ARE RACIST. [CNN Politics]

* It seems weird, but presidential candidates are talking about race for some reason today. [NYT]
* Rudy Giuliani still thinks he’ll be president of Florida just because you can get today’s New York Port on Miami Beach. [Miami Herald]
* Will the world ever recover? The Los Angeles Times loses another editor. {Reuters]
* Well, at least John Edwards is very, very rich. [The Guardian]
* Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews seems to think these presidential candidates are funny. [Fishbowl DC]