Well here is a sort of sad but interesting angle on the Sanford Firecracker Love Scandal, straight from The State reporter Gina Smith, who drove 200 miles to corner the exhausted governor of South Carolina at 6:15 in the morning yesterday as he was arriving back at the Atlanta airport, probably all morning breath-y. MORE »

Really, come on, what the hell? South Carolina state senator and fellow Republican Jake Knotts has this to say about Mark Sanford’s secret sexytime: “I found out that he was taking frequent trips at odd times of the night in a South Carolina Law Enforcement Division car with no security. He would be driving. I got wind that he had taken another one of these types of capers last Thursday, and that nobody knew who he was with.” [CNN]

Not enough evidence, apparently: “Sangamon County State’s Attorney John Schmidt said that while some of Burris’ statements were vague, they wouldn’t support a perjury charge.” Illinois Senator Roland Burris, who at first appeared to be just another grandstanding egomaniacal doofus with a mausoleum fetish, has navigated the halls of the Senate — to say nothing of the vagaries of the Law — with catlike grace, and has made everyone from Harry Reid to Chris Matthews look like an asshole (maybe not so hard?). Anyway, three cheers for Roland Burris. [Washington Post]

What kind of DC buildings generally require a large room called a “confessional,” hmmm? Maybe churches? But nobody builds churches anymore. Maybe Michael Steele’s dream plans for the new GOP headquarters, where the Republicans can boozily admit to their various crimes of racism and pedophilia? NO EVEN BETTER, this is a scoop from the Washington City Paper: Actual blueprints for the Real World DC “weeping chamber,” where the young and talentless stars of this year’s edition of some old MTV comedy will be forced to admit to terrible, terrible things. MORE »

We knew there had to be a “paying off some 19-year-old boy” aspect of this dull John Ensign story, and here it is: A Republican committee paid Nevada Senator John Ensign’s illicit girlfriend’s son $5,400 during the SAME EXACT TIME Ensign and the lady were humping. This teen-ager was given the dirty GOP money for “research policy consulting,” which is even more bogus-sounding that our business expenses. ALSO: Our friends at the Las Vegas Gleaner inform us that Ensign was putting his peen into this lady before he was legally separated from his wife. MORE »

The Republican Renewal Project, which aims to help GOP candidates in Nevada, has a hot new slogan: “It is time to be proud again.” And that is why they are proudly postponing a fundraising dinner featuring Senator John Ensign, due to “a scheduling conflict,” which is probably not related at all to his shameful courting of an adult human female for a brief period of time last year. [Republican Renewal Project]

No sooner did word break last March that New York governor Eliot Spitzer had been patronizing hookers than it devolved into deep unsexiness. We’re talking about Spitzer, after all, one of the least desirable humans on the planet! He refused to take off his socks during sexytime. His “high-class” hooker was just some Jersey girl with bad tattoos and a history of drug abuse. Eliot Spitzer made prostitution boring again. MORE »

Republican operative Ralph Nader is always plotting against the Democrats, so now he’s back with the explosive charges that slimy rum-swigging scam artist Terry McAuliffe offered the Nader campaign some money — maybe fifty bucks? — to stay out of tough states in the 2004 presidential election. And how’d that work out? Well, the Democrats lost, though not because of Nader. (Hint: IT WAS KERRY & EDWARDS’ FAULT, FOR BEING AWFUL.) And now Terry’s running for governor of Virginia, what will happen?! MORE »

• JOE TRIPPI SAYS EDWARDS SABOTAGE PLOT RUMORS ARE ‘COMPLETE BS’: Whaaaa? Does this mean somebody lied to our precious George Stephanopoulos? Prove it, Trippi. [JoeTrippi.com]

So it turns out that some top-level Edwards staffers (JOE TRIPPI???) were prepared to go public with news about their boss’s affair if it looked like he was in danger of actually winning the Democratic nomination. Thus: nobody ever had to worry about him ruining the party, because his own double-crossing employees would have ratted him out first. MORE »

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee — you know, the lobbying group that secretly writes all of our legislation — recently made headlines when allegations surfaced that Rep. Jane Harman (D-Warblog) had promised to ask the Bush White House to go easy on a couple of AIPAC guys accused of spying. Anyway, this notion that Harman is not just in bed with AIPAC but is literally having sex with it deep into the night and making loud erotic noises that disturb the neighbors was probably not helped by a new announcement. MORE »