Wonkette

Did anyone else know that Howard Wolfson has a blog on The New Republic now? No, not his elitist indie rock one, but an actual politics blog that is comically titled “The Flack,” where he mostly answers arbitrary questions about Hillary Clinton. And he says that Clinton will not start a “cat fight” with Palin. Thank God, because no one wants to go through an electoral distraction of THAT kind of world-historical magnitude. Can you even imagine how many 52-year-old male D.C. pundits have the first parts of their “Battle of the Bitches” narratives typed up and ready to go, just sittin’ in Microsoft Word, waiting for the first vague Clinton line about Palin at a rally to set the predetermined cycle in motion? [The Flack]

Paultards are still up in arms trying to figure out who wrote the crazy, conspiratorial, racist screeds that were published in “The Ron Paul Report,” a newsletter that went out to God even knows who for almost 30 years. The New Republic posted the tirades last week, but it wasn’t the newsletters that hurt Paul as much as his total inability to not sound like a racially insensitive tool on CNN that destroyed his status as the presumptive GOP nominee for president and a shoe-in to the White House in November. Paultarded fingers nonetheless point to Dr. Congressman Paul’s former chief of staff, Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., as the likely (and definitely, totally only) racist in their midst. With a name like that, dude’s got to be a racist. [TNR] MORE »

Remember the fake soldier The New Republic hired to write about how terrible our troops are who turned out to be a real soldier? Well The Weekly Standard hired a gay escort-turned-con man to discredit him. [Media Matters]

* Fresh Saddam Hussein execution video is head and shoulders above the rest. [The Jawa Report]
* DEA agents watch Training Day like it was a training video. [Talk Left]
* The New Republic is either stealing headlines from Comedy Central or just making up shit like they do. [Comedy Central Insider]
* Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to be a Zenataur. [Washington Whispers]
* Lisa Simpson does what Al Gore never could: be concise. [C&L]
* Barack Obama has begun preparations for 2008’s swimsuit competition. [Hotline on Call]
* Dick Cheney pulled his guns out of the ground, figures he can use them some more. [AP]

Ace national security journo Spencer Ackerman quit his editing gig at The New Republic this week, announcing it officially with a tiny little note on his brand new, aptly titled blog. Considering that we’d been told it would happen a month ago, the lack of shock echoing throughout the DC mediasphere is hardly surprising. Why’d Spencer leave? MORE »

Still no damn details on the Jim Webb “thunder thighs” remark. The Baltimore Sun editorial cited by the Allen campaign reads as follows:

Such acts are less surprising, but no less disturbing, when put in a context typified by former Navy Secretary James Webb’s description of female middies as “thunder thighs.”

It’s quoting a New Republic piece from earlier in the year, which we finally found (guys, your archiving system sucks almost as much as your publisher, blogs, editorial content, and circulation). Excerpt after the jump, though the text is exactly as it appears on Allen’s site. The source, unless we’re missing something (and no, we don’t have the full text of Webb’s Washingtonian piece, “Women Are Pussies”), is author Carol Burke herself, who doesn’t explain if it’s something she witnessed or something she heard about, or if it came from his speech before the school or in casual conversation.

We don’t doubt it, we just want context! THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY CALLED SOMEONE “THUNDER THIGHS.” Tell us who and why!

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The New York Observer today features a lengthy and hilarious investigation into the public, online meltdown of New Republic culture critic Lee Siegel, who, after penning a blog for TNR in which he attacked all other bloggers and those associated with them (in the process coining the term “blogofascism”), later dove into the comment threads of his own posts to defend himself. Using a goofy alias, of course, and lots of blogofascistic language. Naturally, at some point in his storied career of pissing people off, he pissed off Christopher Hitchens — so they took it to the streets! Or, uh, to their respective inboxes. MORE »

So Kitty Kelley’s dishy tell-all with Duke Cunningham’s wife in The New Republic is something. First, The New Republic? What, Commentary wasn’t buying? Yeah, when we think gossip, we think “pedantic, robotically contrarian Israel apologists.” Second, Duke Cunningham’s a jackass, but we hesitate before lending too much credence to the machinations of his bitter, somewhat crazy might-soon-be-ex-wife (like a character in a Jane Austen novel, she calls him “Mr. Cunningham”. Also like a character in a Jane Austen novel, she steals bread from restaurants.). Come on, didn’t you see My Super Ex-Girlfriend? Jilted ladies can Start. A. Ruckus.

Yeah, we didn’t see it either.

Still, it’s a pretty funny and fascinating read. Nancy portrays the Duke-stir as an arrogant, homophobic egomaniac, a cross between The Great Santini and Ron Popeil: MORE »

The New Republic’s Elspeth “That Girl Who Doesn’t Shave Her Pits” Reeve loves Ann Coulter for her [s]ass:

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The New Republic:

Uh… MORE »