Wonkette

In case you haven’t noticed, we have a weakness for difficult women around here. High-handed women, like Katherine Harris and Cynthia McKinney, make for good copy. MORE »

We hate having to do this yet again. But it’s now Thursday, and we find ourselves with a paucity of celebrity sightings for this week’s installment of Wonk’d. Right now we have a grand total of six — or five, if you subtract that sighting one of you sent in about a Hamas official we’d never heard of being spotted in a foreign country. MORE »

This afternoon, after blogging about Robin Givhan’s Pulitzer Prize win, we received this email from a reader: “Was Robin Givhan married to Mike Tyson? Was this the same woman?” MORE »

We get a lot of reader email around here, and we try our best to read each message (and to respond when necessary). Given the sheer volume of correspondence we receive, there were many candidates to choose from; but this message must win for “best email we’ve received in a long, long time.” MORE »

Okay, we kinda dropped the ball on this one (and were properly chided for doing so at a party we just returned from). We asked you for interesting information about Brian J. Doyle, the Department of Homeland Security official who was arrested on charges of using a computer to seduce a child. You sent us a number of juicy tips, which we meant to publish, but then, well, mostly forgot to publish (except for this post). Perhaps we were overly cautious, handling the story with kid gloves given the lurid nature of the allegations.

The story has run its course for the most part, and now that Brian Doyle is no longer a DHS official — he resigned last Friday, after initially being placed on administrative leave — it may lie beyond the purview of this blog. The governmental or political angle is dissipating; it is becoming a run-of-the-mill story about a middle-aged man trying to pick up an underaged girl over the internet

But since a number of you went to the trouble to share tidbits of gossip and information with us — including some of you who know Brian Doyle personally — we pass them along after the jump, for what they might be worth.

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We’ve started compiling celebrity sightings for this week’s installment of Wonk’d, and we seem to have a grand total of four. Yes, that’s right: four. The Reliable Source gals* sometimes have that many sightings in a single day. Boy do we feel pathetic. MORE »

As you might have expected, we are all over the story of Brian J. Doyle, the DHS official who was arrested last night on charges of using the internet to seduce a 14-year-old girl (who turned out to be an undercover agent). Now we’d like some help from you, our readers — specifically, those of you who know or have worked with Brian Doyle. MORE »

In our earlier report about the National Press Club debate involving Glenn Reynolds, Joe Trippi, and Barry Lynn, we were careful to distinguish between Barry C. Lynn — senior fellow at the New America Foundation, who participated in last night’s debate — and Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. MORE »

In response to this funny picture post from yesterday, a reader emailed us as follows: MORE »

Perhaps there are similarities between Capitol Hill and a plantation. But it’s not the members who are engaged in involuntary labor — it’s their staffs! MORE »

This morning, after posting a picture of a rather dubious sign outside the Armstrong ranch, we posed the following question to you, our loyal readers: MORE »

On Valentine’s Day, we asked you for stories of kissing prominent politicians and the like. Here’s an anecdote we received about one renowned womanizer, the late Strom Thurmond: MORE »

Earlier today, we announced some of the finalists in our Wonkette reader contest, “So What’s Really Bothering Justice Stevens?” Now, what you’ve all been waiting for: the runner-up and the winner!

But first one final caveat. As we originally emphasized, the rumor that Justice Stevens uttered the sentence, “I can’t put up with this shit anymore!”, is just that — a rumor. And it may not be a particularly reliable one. One former clerk emailed us as follows:

As someone who clerked for Justice Stevens and is fairly familiar with his manner of public and private expression, I find it incredulous that he would say anything of the kind. He’s a gentleman through and through, and the expression attributed to him is totally inconsistent with his personality. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone made up the quote for malicious purposes. Cf. Ann Coulter.

Although we are certainly willing to blame Ann Coulter for all that is evil in the world, we can assure you that she was not our source. But we do think that the above caveat is valuable, which is why we’ve shared it with you.

After the jump, the runner-up and the winning entry — and a bonus gift for our readers!

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