Wonkette

Well. The National Press Club, Washington’s very Esteemed Lunch Club for reporters, has allowed Larry Sinclair to book 2.5 hours worth of prime real estate on June 18. Larry Sinclair is the guy who claimed he had hot gay blowjobs and did coke with Barack Obama in a hilariously fabricated YouTube video, and hasn’t given up his efforts, despite failing a lie detector test. Normally we think petitions are boring, but, well, sign this fucking petition. [Firedoglake]

In the event that Iranian Space Monsters bomb everything in the entire world and Internet tonight except the National Press Club, you may consider attending its lecture tomorrow from this Presidential Candidate of the “Proudican” party, where he will explain his unique “prolutions,” which are either “progressive solutions” or “masturbatory conspiracy salons.” [National Press Club]

Jeremiah Wright’s press conference before the National Press Club this morning got the blogosphere in a bundle today, because someone decided it has to matter. Here’s the current View Of Wright: Obviously he’s very upset that the Main Stream Media has been SMEARING him, who wouldn’t, and he’s defending his statements pretty strongly (”It is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright — it’s an attack on the black church,” he says.) And he reiterated what he told Bill Moyers in their teevee interview about Barack Obama: “He had to distance himself because he’s a politician,” Wright said. He’s blowing open the racial politics that Obama wants to close and claiming that Obama is insincere when he rejects Wright’s “extreme sermons”; he’s trying to balance a deserved self-defense with the collateral damage that that brings on Obama. He has an ego. Most importantly, he’s just some old preacher and not Obama’s surrogate father. He can say whatever he wants and Barry will just have to deal with it. Individual people have a right to defend themselves, and politicians have a right to disown them. That’s all, goodnight. [AP]

Uh oh, it looks like last-minute emcee Chris “Chinese Bus” Matthews had some problems at last night’s Washington Press Club Foundation dinner. He was trying to talk, but everyone kept talking over him. Alas, he now knows what it’s like to be a guest on Hardball. A Wonkette operative tells the story, after the jump! MORE »

*HE ONLY GOT THIS BECAUSE HIS WIFE MESSED AROUND:* In a last-minute change, Chris “Tweety” Matthews has been enlisted to replace patriot Tony Snow as emcee at tonight’s Washington Press Club Foundation Dinner. Is it too late to ask for some Wonkette tickets? Hopefully Matthews’ Chinese Bus won’t be get in an accident on the way over when Southern-speaking Obama Boners clog up I-395. [Shenanigans]

Washington is buzzing with another kind of immigration nut as hundreds of UFO nerds congregate at the National Press Club to demand, uselessly, that the Government ‘fess up about the space monsters, while more than 70 actual astronomers gathered here to support the Arecibo Radio Telescope Observatory in Puerto Rico, which sent the Nixon-era message to the Extraterrestrials inviting them to invade our world and steal all the oil. Unless Congress keeps up funding for Arecibo, rogue FBI agents and space aliens could easily penetrate its defenses. Oh, and also, something from Outer Space just crashed in Peru and left a gaping hole in the ground and all the people are sick and vomiting from the Death Rays. MORE »

* Kiefer Sutherland will be in town this weekend to close the DC Independent Film Festival. [life off balance]
* Just another Monday night at the National Press Club, talking about Katie Couric’s shoes. [circumlocator]
* We’ll pass on the shirts, but how much for the Petworth DC Raggie-Annie? [Petworth DC]
* ShamrockFest “urb to suburb” music recommendations. [Thong Speed]

* Alice Walker at Politics & Prose. 7PM. [P&P]
* Beaujolais Nouveau Party at Les Halles: “You’ll get free wine (from a French producer to be named), free tripe (mmm .. stomach lining), and dancing, beginning at 9, and the wine flows at midnight. Early arrival is suggested.” [WP]
* The Press Club book fair with Pat Buchanan, Sen. Byron Dorgan, Helen Thomas and Ben Barnes, etc. Proceeds benefit the National Press Club’s Friedheim Library. $5 at 6PM. [National Press Club]
* G.W. law Feminist Forum hosts the 2nd Annual FEMAPALOOZA at DC9. $8. [DC9]

• Ever wonder what passive-aggressive uptight agriculture administrators do when they boil over? Now you know.

• Katherine Harris’s senate campaign reminds us of a kitchy 60’s feminist empowerment fantasy but we’re not sure which one. Oh well, there’s not many better ways to spend a weekend then smoking a joint and watching them all.
• When times are desperate, and you just have to meet Tim Russert, you might want to try showing up on Nebraska Ave. Sunday morning - you know what time - with a nice floral arrangement and a card addressed to, “the most interesting and important man on television.” We’re not sayin’, we’re just sayin’.
• As the Vanity Fair cover fades from memory, Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame decide it’s time to get theirs, hold press conference to let us know. Dick Cheney is shaking in his Allen Edmonds.
• Thanks to Arlen Specter using his “serious face” in negotiations with the White House, a secret court is now allowed to put it’s quarter in the slot and get a 30 second peek at the steamy domestic spying program.
• Is this heaven Osama? No. It’s Indiana, the place where terrorists’ dreams come true.
• We love going Bananas for the semi-monthly “Castro’s dead” rumors.
• The National Press Club makes an honest reporter out of the new and improved Jeff Gannon.
• Wonk’d, Washington’s celebrity sighting column of record, is entered as “Exhibit-W” in the trial for infamous Duke “laxer” Collin Finnerty.

Ben Widdicombe reports today that Jeff Gannon, beloved Washington male escort/journalist, is heading up to New York to chat with the Log Cabin Republicans on Thursday. Widdicombe asks Gannon about his, uh, “biases,” and Gannon invokes “the Anderson Cooper rule,” which is fantastic on so, so many levels. MORE »