Wonkette

BLUMENTHAL PLEADS GUILTY TO ALCOHOL & CAR PARTY: Political journalist and longtime Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal has plead guilty to driving 70 in a 30 MPH zone in New Hampshire the night before its primary. He was driving so fast because he was more drunk than any human has ever been. [The Caucus]

Remember Sidney Blumenthal? He was a bigshot print journalist back when that last mattered, in the early 1990s. And then the Clintons saved him from obsolescence by making Sid a very special part of the Bill/Hillary circle. They are loyal, as long as you never cross them in any way: Blumenthal is still working for the Clintons today. But he’s now facing “aggravated DWI” charges for allegedly driving so very drunk in New Hampshire last week. [The Smoking Gun]

It’s a very gay week in Wonk’d. Cher was at the Capitol, Andre Leon Talley was shopping for make-up in Dupont, and Jenna Bush was enjoying some musical theater. Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd gets man-handled at a Hill bar, and Wolf Blitzer is dropping some pounds and dressing sassy. Some bold-facers defy stereotypes though, like Wizards player Donell Taylor, shopping sans entourage, and Mark Shields, driving the way liberal pundits shouldn’t. At least you can always count on Wonk’d — and Katherine Harris’s taste in outfits.

Sooner or later everyone comes to Washington. When they do, it’s your duty as citizens of this fair city to make sure they get spotted and end up in these pages, er, screens. Whatever; just email us, with “Wonk’d” or “Sighting” in the subject line, and the name of the sightee. You, the sighter, will remain anonymous — at least until your big break, when people start sending in sightings of you!

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CJR has put together a comparison between two profiles of Robert Novak, one by Sidney Blumenthal at Salon and the other by Amy Sullivan at the Washington Monthly. Sullivan’s appeared first — eight months ago. There are clear similarities between the two, arguments and turns of phrase that seem specifically modified to escape direct quotation, a slightly more sophisticated version of how we got through graduate school.

Suliivan: Swiveling in his chair, Novak went on the attack — “It looks like the ambassador [Wilson] really doesn’t know who leaked this to me”
Blumenthal: Swiveling back and forth in his chair, he engaged in a show of bravado. “It looks like the ambassador [Wilson] really doesn’t know who leaked this to me”

The biggest surprise here, of course, is that anyone reads the Washington Monthly. Second: Apparently that line about Novak and the “greasy pole” is all Blumenthal. Well, he did work for Clinton. While we hate to get in the way of any media-lanche that would bury Novak, this does look bad. We don’t know if there’s an appreciable legal difference between plagiarism and laziness, but Blumenthal should probably find out. MORE »

• New programming at CNN: “Get ready for Anderson Cooper 360 Full Monte, a panoramic view of the Mini Cooper, if you catch my drift.” [Mr. Sun] MORE »