Dimpled fascist Rick Santorum basically committed himself to running for the President of Republicans, in 2012! At least, this is what he told a bunch of Catholic leaders at the Catholic Leadership conference, which was held somewhere over the weekend at some point. Your Wonkette guessed as much was true when back in August Santorum said he was going to be in Iowa in October. Anyway, Santorum famously could not even manage to get elected to a third Senate term back when he was Pennsylvania’s two-term Senator. Considering how big of an obvious failure he is, he is still pretty confident about WINNING THE PRESIDENCY, which is what counts! “Six months ago I would not have spent ten seconds on your question, but it’s not six months ago. I see that, I hate to be calculating, but I see that 2012 is not just throwing somebody out to be eaten, but it’s a real opportunity for success.” [LifeSiteNews (which is somehow not a website for pornography?) via Ben Smith]

WE HATE TO BE LIKE THOSE PEOPLE WHO THINK A TEMPORARY GMAIL CRASH IS WORSE THAN HITLER & THE APOCALYPSE COMBINED BUT HONESTLY, IT’S JUST REALLY INCONVENIENT: As an actual monster once wrote, “Torture always is ugly. So, though, is the hole in the ground where the Gmail once stood.” Oh ho ho — but now it’s back up and working again? Thank you for keeping us safe, Dick Cheney!

• RED LINE KILLS AGAIN: “Metro reports a person was struck and killed by a Red Line train at Forest Glen this afternoon. The transit authority said it appeared the person was on the tracks deliberately.” Yeah they always say that. [Washington Post]

Noted stage demon “Michael Israel” just sent us an email announcing his performance of some atrocity at the Veterans’ Inaugural Ball! “Michael will help mark the historic event by performing his 6 foot by 4 foot portrait of the newly elected President Live in Concert in 7 minutes,” according to the bizarre spam we somehow received and tried to read, despite the fact that it’s written in Goblinese. Also, the tag line of this person doing this occult ritual is as follows: michael israel - putting the “art” in “america.” Please, Leon Panetta, put a stop to this witchcraft. [Michael Israel]

Has there ever been a more wonderful pre-election story than the McCain-Palin war? It’s like Christmas, Halloween and 9/11 combined, times a trillion, and sometimes it seems too fantastic to be real. Is the GOP ticket truly having a public war over which candidate doomed the Republicans? And do we really get daily updates from the Mainstream Media and Conservative Columnists? Yes, to everything! Today, Roger Simon of the Politico and George Will of the Washington Post hit McCain-Palin when they’re down. MORE »

Your editor’s sort-of relative teaches at Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood! We knew she taught in the Valley but did not know where, exactly — and she is right there, at the heart of the failure of the John McCain Campaign and its weird attempt to put some kind of picture related to Walter Reed Army Hospital behind McCain’s head during his big acceptance speech about his plane crash 40 years ago, even if all most of you saw, on the teevee, was yet another dumb “green screen” behind his bald skull, just waiting for web geeks to fill that vapid void with dancing hobbits, furry porn or Abu Ghraib photographs. Anyway …. MORE »

OUR NATION’S WEATHER LADIES: Cindy McCain and Laura Bush will actually (maybe) speak today — beginning at 4:50 p.m., Central time — at the Republican convention! They will talk about, uh, Gustav. The hurricane. They will talk about a hurricane. This is the new GOP platform: Talking about a hurricane. [McClatchy]

John McCain has bravely declared that all Republicans must put on their “American hats” and, at least for this week, pretend to care about Americans or black people or whatever. As a result, the hotels and convention center are buzzing with the most horrible kind of rumor: A whole bunch of RNC cocktail parties and coke fests are being canceled. Jesus, could anything so terrible possibly be true? MORE »

WHERE WAS MARK PENN THAT NIGHT? Turns out that no-big-deal little plane emergency on Barack Obama’s charter jet was actually kind of a big deal — hope almost crashed and burned in St. Louis that dark night. [ABC News]

NASA, which means FAIL in the Moon Man language, has announced the doomed zillion-dollar replacement for the rust-bucket death-trap space shuttles that haven’t yet blown up won’t be ready until at least September of 2014, which means “never” in the Moon Man language. MORE »

Remember the last young handsome half-Kenyan President we had before Barack Obama? Yes, Jack Kennedy! You’ll recall he assembled a band of Cuban nationals to re-invade Guam, and then he tore Nikita Khrushchev a new one while having sex with Marilyn Monroe and Angie Dickinson simultaneously. None of it would have been possible without drugs, and the excuse for the drugs was diarrhea. MORE »