Wonkette

Democratic politicians appearing on the comedy teevee show The Colbert Report got an average 40 percent bump in contributions in the month following their visit, while Republican politicians got an average of nothing. This just goes to prove that Republicans do not watch The Colbert Report, or if they do, they end up contributing to Democratic politicians. Read a PDF of the research report here. [American Political Science Association]

Here’s Stephen Colbert’s take on yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, striking down the military tribunals for Guantanamo Bay detainees as violative of U.S. and international law. MORE »

Love him or hate him, Chris Matthews is a force to be reckoned with. The Hardball host has “an almost transparent knowledge of your soul.” And he’s a really good wrestler — or at least better than Stephen Colbert: MORE »

• Reliable Source: Matt Lauer hosts a dinner at Cafe Milano for Meredith Vieira… Sales of Ann Coulter’s new book are strong… Alberto Gonzales denies that his children download music illegally. [WP]

• Heard on the Hill: Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) is boning up on the Ten Commandments, after being unable to name all of them on The Colbert Report… Rep. Howard Coble gets invited to the White House, takes a female staffer — picked through a lottery — as his guest. [Roll Call]
• Page Six: Celebs turn out to try and convince DNC executive director Tom McMahon that New York should be selected to host the Democratic national convention; Barbara Walters promises to take McMahon out and get him drunk. [NYP]

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) is one of only two House members not to sponsor a bill this session. But no matter that. MORE »

* President Ahmadinejad can send a mix tape with any songs he wants, all Bush hears in his head is the remix to that Outkast song — Bombs over Tehran. [Arms Control Wonk] MORE »

Now we bring you some news from beyond the Beltway. Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, the fitness fanatic and likely 2008 presidential candidate, is in a spat right now with the Arkansas Times. And things have gotten ugly.

An Arkansas correspondent informs us:

[P]ossible presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has decided to purge the Arkansas Times from all of the governor’s office notification lists. He defends his action by saying the alt weekly isn’t a “news organization.” This is most definitely in retaliation to the Times’ criticism of Huckabee and his wthics transgressions, the latest of which is his abuse of a state-funded airplane.

Huckabee is a petty, vindictive little man who gets upset when you call him on his challenged ethics and his penchant for giving clemency to prisoners who claim to love Jesus and then go out and kill (look up the story on Wayne Dumond).

The saga continues, after the jump.

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In the words of our tipster: “I’m glad to see they’re getting to the bottom of this.” MORE »

Via our media-obsessed sister, who regularly reports on the latest book deals, we learn: MORE »

Earlier this afternoon, a Capitol Hill source advised us: MORE »

The Colbert Report tests the boundaries of just how long one can stand arch irony. Or maybe I mean satire and “arch” is just what Stephen Colbert’s eyebrow does the entire show. In any case, the Colbert Report’s shtick will be familiar to any Daily Show viewer — Colbert’s fatuous, arrogant character deadpans nonsense and near nonsense in the exact low tones of our most trusted (or, uhm, at least highest-rated) news anchors. His showy “gravitas” (as Colbert congratulates himself) targets loofah-lover Bill O’Reilly most explicitly, right down to the bullet-pointed commentary on his opening spiel against “the word police.” (On the screen: “Head bad, heart good.”) This first show was probably long-planned so we won’t hold its relative lack of currency against it, especially since rants against elitism are pretty much evergreen. Just plug in the President’s latest decision: “If you THINK about Harriet Miers, of course her nomination is absurd. But the president didn’t think about her nomination — ‘I know her heart’ — notice how he didn’t mention her brain.”

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