Wonkette

* America’s mayor took some pretty shiny payola from America’s team. [Political Wire]
* Lack of a major league club in Jersey just means they hand him an envelope stuffed with electoral delegates instead. [Atlantic Online]
* James Sensenbrenner: still the biggest asshole on The Hill. [TPM Muckraker]
* Tom Tancredo’s failures as a presidential candidate contribute to already substantial failures as a congressman. [Denver Post]
* Terrorists continue to target nations’ hand-release infrastructure. [Passport]
* Intelligence agencies maintain “it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission.” [Secrecy News]
* Fox News wrongly accused Hillary Clinton of only recently starting to dress badly. [Media Matters]

* On 4th anniversary of Iraq war, President Bush reminds everyone how great it is, why we should stay. [WP, NYT]
* Meanwhile, Democrats move towards “a withdraw-the-troops bill, not a fund-the-troops bill,” one greased congressional palm at a time. [WP]
* Justice Department considers shutting up one of the fired attorneys with a new job. Hopefully, he’ll also demand a hush-corner office, a hush-oak desk, and a giant hush-jar of only green jelly beans. [WP]
* Patrick Fitzgerald was on the DOJ “enemies list” released in yesterday’s document dump. [WP, NYT]
* Flunkies for Barry O. and Hill Rod have a little spat in front of some college boys over “who would have been more against the war if 2003 was a Presidential election year.” [WP]
* Supreme Court hears “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case, finds a lack of any bong hits or any Jesus. [NYT]
* Rudy Giuliani: it’s almost as if he’s a real lawyer. [WSJ]

Behold, the best email we have ever received. MORE »

Whatever Patrick Hynes gets for his consulting work (actually, we sort of know), he’s worth every cent. Shortly after we posted a follow-up on his John McCain sorta-scandal, Hynes himself called me up to clear the air about Straight Talk America, his cable TV blog, and whether he’s only mean when people pay him to be mean. This marks the first time in my epic four-day saga as a guest-blogger than a libelled public figure has taken the effort to clear things up. Will it happen again? C’mon, Vern: Leave the dogs alone and give me a holler.

The interview starts up top and continues below the fold.

Previously: Reading Between the Hynes, Straight Talk, Unmarked Bills

– David Weigel

WONKETTE: Why did you consult without disclosing it when you’d attacked Daily Kos for the same thing?
PAT HYNES: About the Markos thing: Let me say in my defense, about a year ago I appeared on Washington Journal with Jerome Armstrong. And right then I acknowledged that Markos had appropriately disclosed his consulting work. So I was wrong before.

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Washington - and by “Washington,” I mean “some guys who keep e-mailing us” - can’t get enough of super-consultant Patrick Hynes. After we noted that the Ankle Biting Pundits blogger had a contract with John McCain’s PAC that he failed to disclose while posting supportive guff about the angry Arizonan, tips flowed in from (we assume) Hynes’ bitter arch-enemies. We can’t vouch for the authenticity of this stuff, but it’s probably good to get it all out in public so Hynes can disclose everything and put it behind him. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a blogger having multiple clients in politics and business and blogging to promote them or connecting them with other bloggers. As long, of course, as it’s all disclosed.

Plus, Howard Dean paid us to do it.

Mysterious e-mail tips below the fold.

Previously: Straight Talk, Unmarked Bills

– David Weigel

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Political consultant Patrick Hynes wears many hats. By day he’s the president of New Media Strategics, a firm that works with McCain’s Straight Talk America PAC to “bring New Media tools to the cause of reform.” By… well, also by day, he’s the “founder and proprietor” of Ankle Biting Pundits, a gleeful conservative blog launched in 2004 as “Crush Kerry” and renamed after Kerry was crushed. MORE »

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Remember the Big Ol’ Journalism Scandal we speculated on last week? We got it, naturally, about half right, and some of the details are already in the public record. It’s partially described by freelance columnist Cathy Seipp here and here. And here’s a dissenting opinion from a columnist accused of accepting the payola (on TownHall, so you just know he’s a reliable, responsible journalist). MORE »