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 »

It turns out that your Jake Tappers and Chuck Todds are in the minority when it comes to White House correspondents. Upwards of 98 percent of the people attending the White House’s daily press briefings are nutballs who don’t even write for news organizations and love to steal Politico’s chair. These insane people just like to hang out there, because it feels like “family” or “home” to them, spending hours in this cramped, low-ceilinged little bunker with Helen Thomas. MORE »

HERE’S A FUN PRESS CORPS GAME CALLED “STEAL POLITICO’S SEAT!” We rather like the anecdotes in this FiveThirtyEight post about how oppressed bloggers are always trying to steal Politico’s seat at White House press briefings, only to be caught minutes later by confused Politico reporters. This could be a fun daily game! So we ask that reporters take turns stealing Politico’s seat — one day Sam Stein does it, the next day David Corn, etc. — and e-mail us the name of Politico reporter who awkwardly kicked you out, and what it was like. [FiveThirtyEight]

Here’s America’s favorite traveling Bob Saget impersonator, ABC News’ Jake Tapper, sort of… yeah… destroying Robert Gibbs with relative ease. Gibbs ends Tapper’s time by ignoring his question, ha. Was “Gibbsy” really the best choice for this job, hmm? Guess we won’t be seeing these two together at the Hawk ‘n’ Dove anymore. [YouTube]

There are many video versions of this scene floating around tonight, as Barack Obama actually walked through this subterranean hell bunker to talk to these White House press reporters and photographers and videographers. It’s a happy scene of serfs worshiping their Lord of the Manor, and nobody really notices that twerp from Politico whining about Gitmo, which Obama is actually shutting down, duh, good work POLITICO. Anyway, we like the sex scenes. MORE »

Ha ha, we said we’d liveblog this thing but what if the cable news networks don’t even cover sad old George Bush’s last press conference in his whole life? That would surely be embarrassing, for your Wonkette but most particularly for the President. Well, let’s sit tight and fix ourselves some Bailey’s and coffee before whatever the hell is supposed to happen at 9:15. If there’s no George Bush we’ll just liveblog … uh, Roland Burris? Surely he’s about due for one of his thrice-daily press conferences. MORE »

This guy! Presumption Watch etc! Barack Obama has been holding press conferences pretty much nonstop since he was elected, what, 40 million years ago, and since then he has just blah blah blahed all over the press because he didn’t get enough love in his childhood. That is the only reasonable conclusion you can make about his infinite interminable press conferences, not to mention the YouTubes and the line of specially branded sex dolls: they are pathetic cries for attention. MORE »

Ha ha, Robert Gibbs. The first time we saw him on the teevee, we immediately assumed that this smug chubby-faced white guy was a Republican. But whoops, no, he is a hilarious Democrat who grins his way through arguments with Sean Hannity and acted as Barack Obama’s communications director during the campaign. Now he will be the new Dana Perino. [Politico]

Poor Ben Porritt. The other night this tragic McCain spokesflak was on David Shuster’s show, trying to explain Sarah Palin’s latest stupidity about how the First Amendment should protect her from being criticized by the press, and it was very clear that this sad young douche needs a vacation. But with only a few days and eleventy states left for John McCain to campaign in, Ben Porritt has no time for sleep, or for saying things that make sense. Instead he had this bit of weirdness to say about Joe Biden this weekend: MORE »

Just four short years ago, it was the Democrats who were getting called out in the press for constantly changing strategies and bickering publicly about petty nonsense. And four years ago, Joe Biden took a brave stand and asked reporters the very important question, “Who gives a shit?” (Those are the actual words out of his mouth.) Why will he not now take a stand for his great friend John McCain, who is boldly running his campaign straight out of the Kerry ‘04 playbook? [YouTube]

Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin reneged on her vow to talk “straight to the American people” by ignoring the media until after she’s elected President. She has instead agreed to a sit-down today with CNN, the Communist News Network. Palin will talk with some person named “Drew Griffin,” which is an anagram for “Grr! Win if fed,” which means Drew Griffin is a hobo bear who “wins” for food. Bears are also a symbol of communism, and Barack Obama. MORE »