Throughout the day, we’ve delivered celebrity sightings of Bob Novak, that human-animal hybrid; more Supreme Court justices than you can shake a stick at; and the man that everyone’s talking about, Jack Abramoff.

Now we bring you an added bonus: a sighting of a possible future POTUS, Senator John McCain!

Sitting in National, waiting to catch the shuttle flight to NYC, when McCain sits down in front of me. Multiple people keep coming up to him to talk. A woman in her mid 50’s comes up and says, “Why, Senator McCain, you are so much better
looking in person!” McCain says thank you.

As she leaves, I lean in and say, “Senator, I know how hard it is to be so devilishly good looking.” McCain starts cracking up, and I continue by saying, “I’m glad that worked — it was that or a Jack Abramoff
joke!”

The laughing stops; McCain proceeds to raise his paper over his face. I get up and walk away.

Good stuff! And the fun’s not over yet. Go the jump page — click on that pointing finger — for sightings of such boldface names as Susan Collins, Tony Williams, Mark Warner, Karl Rove, Joe Lockhart, Paul Begala, Bill Frist, and many more!

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Wonkette readers are no Googling monkeys, but they do know their way around a high school yearbook. Two theories dominated the guessing game about the meaning of this headscratcher:

* A SMART SUGARLAND MOVE BY BEGALA, per the Washington Post: “Adults With Wisdom Teeth Often Develop Gum Disease.” (That one is an inside joke intelligible to precisely seven Note readers.) LINK

First: Paul Begala is from Sugar Land, he had his wisdom teeth removed while there, and thus is one smart guy, able to pat himself on the back this morning after a general round of back patting generated by the the rest of the morning’s news. This is not much of a joke, but it does make some kind of sense. MORE »

As some readers may remember, Wonkette periodically offers a “Decoding the Note” service, wherein we unscramble the onanistic self-references of Washington’s most insufferable political tipsheet so that civilians can also appreciate their insidery tediousness. Today, however, we admit that we’re stumped:

* A SMART SUGARLAND MOVE BY BEGALA, per the Washington Post: “Adults With Wisdom Teeth Often Develop Gum Disease.” (That one is an inside joke intelligible to precisely seven Note readers.) LINK

Wow, seven people, eh? Do the seven people on the masthead count? In any case, we defer to the hive mind of the Wonkette readership on this one, though we’re completely willing to make up a backstory if the real one can’t be found. Some conjectures so far: MORE »

• Names & Faces: Jordan’s King Abdullah II frequents the Georgetown Safeway. . . Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner skip out on Capitol Hill gala. [WP]
• Inside the Beltway: Kerry was eating at Cafe Milano when Bush was addressing the nation. [WT]
• Under the Dome: Hillary, Begala, Obama, Dodd, Safire among those set to roast Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) tonight. . . Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.), Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.), Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.), and Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R-Mo.) play Farm Aid. . . Rep. John Kline’s (R-Minn.) son leaves to serve in Iraq. [The Hill]
• Lloyd Grove’s Lowdown: Dick Morris yells at fellow flyers: “Goddamn it! Shut up! I’m trying to sleep!” [NYDN]
• Rush & Molloy: Patricia Arquette: “All the poor, all the working poor who live from paycheck to paycheck. . . I know Trent Lott’s gonna get a new house. But a lot of people aren’t.” [NYDN]

• Names & Faces: Specter comments on Roberts: “It’s an opportunity to have a different approach of collegiality. I argued a case in the Supreme Court a few years back and Chief Justice Rehnquist ran a stopwatch, interrupted in mid-sentence. The word is he was looking for a way to interrupt somebody in the middle of the word ‘if.’” [WP]
• Lloyd Grove’s Lowdown: Cheney remained on vacation until Thursday. Begala: “You’re not going to send him to be comforter-in-chief. He’s the type of guy who would look at them and growl, ‘Life’s tough. Get back to work.’” [NYDN]
• Liz Smith: O’Reilly says Americans cannot depend on the government. [NYP]
• Page Six: Monica Lewinsky enrolls at the London School of Economics for a master’s degree in Social Psychology. [NYP]

We didn’t actually want to get caught up in this controversy, but since Fishboy brought it up, re the origin of the sobriquet that Washington is “Hollywood for ugly people”:

An infamous Hill aide fired from her entry-level job for blogging about her sexual partners who cashes in for a trashy novel deal [we think he's talking about Jessica Cutler -- ed.] or a hugely-talented and storied writer for Vanity Fair [no clue -- ed.]?

Helpfully, someone with minimal (or at least free) research skills was able to trace it to a 1999 Paul Begala column. We put the massive resources of the Gawker Media Empire to work and our shared Nexis account came up with a citation from 1995, a citation which seems to indicate that even then, it was an old joke. From, er, the first issue of “George” magazine (September 30, 1995):

George tries to present politics in the glossy way in which Vanity Fair, Esquire and their ilk present the worlds of fashion and entertainment. The people in those worlds strive to be charming and beautiful. Washington? As one comedian has put it, Washington is a Hollywood for ugly people.

We may never get to the bottom of who said it first, but if we see that phrase cited as proof of anyone’s original wit, we will make that person listen Paul Harvey segments ’til that person head explodes. MORE »