Wonkette

The Time Magazine Man of the Year roadshow rolled into D.C. this morning at an ungodly hour despite the snow to get D.C. opinion leaders’ opinions on who Time should’ve chosen (since they’ve probably already decided) besides You, you narcissistic bastard. To help not decide, they invited Senator Sam Brownback, Representative Ellen Tauscher and Time Magazine employees Mark Halperin and Karen Tumulty. We don’t know why that group of people, really, but they fed us coffee and miniature pastries so that we couldn’t ask because our mouths were full.

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* Tommy Thompson took pages from the Bill Clinton and Bernie Kerik playbooks when he was spewing his seed all over Wisconsin. Pandagon]
* Democrats will “sanction” a series of debates that will not be fair and balanced. [Democrats.org, Election Central]
* Obama’s pile of money is like a beacon in the night, calling Al Gore into the race. [Political Insider]
* In tomorrow’s TIME “shocker,” Joe Klein will call for Bush to be impeached. [E&P]
* Air Force test pilots hot-box their new hot-rods. [Danger Room]
* McCain should get out of the race while he has a clusterfuck in Iraq to blame it on. [CQ Politics]

* Alberto Gonzales is still speaking at the Press Club next month, it’s just the attorney general who’s not. [Hotline on Call]
* Nancy Pelosi goes all the way to Syria for secret ingredient in the Al-Assad family hummus recipe. [Think Progress]
* It’s a pretty lonely planet at the State Department. [Outside the Beltway]
* TIME magazine not too interested in covering what’s going on this time. [The Carpetbagger Report]
* More battleships in the Persian Gulf are just what the doctor ordered. [The Left Coaster]
* How to find out who else is growing weed in your neighborhood. [Hit & Run]
* If you grow it, they will drive. [Just a Bump in the Beltway]
* “An extremely drunk ballerina elephant in tutus who has just lurched into the shop.” [1115]

From the weekend inbox, two emails from Time PR, sent within an hour of each other. It was, apparently, a very momentous and unexpected hour in Baghdad. MORE »

* Disapproval of Bush could drive a rejection of Republican candidates in November. GOP pollster: “Democrats will have an easier time of getting out their vote because of their intense disapproval of the president. That means we Republicans are going to have to bring our ‘A’ turnout game in November.” [WP]
* Rumsfeld’s “grip on the Defense Department is slipping as some uniformed officers increasingly chart their own course.” [W$J]
* Republicans back Rumsfeld on Sunday talk shows. [NYT, USAT]
* 48 American troops have died in Iraq so far this month. [USAT]
* If Roe were overturned, 22 states are likely to “impose significant new restrictions on abortion.” [USAT]
* Josh Bolten officially takes office today; he gave Andy Card an Egg McMuffin on his way out. [USAT]
* Time magazine names Sens. Thad Cochran, Kent Conrad, Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy, Jon Kyl, Carl Levin, Richard Lugar, John McCain, Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter as the nation’s best; Sens. Daniel Akaka, Wayne Allard, Jim Bunning, Conrad Burns, and Mark Dayton considered the worst. [Time]
* Immigration rallies “have also energized those who support a crackdown on illegal immigration.” [NYT]
* Can Rep. Tom DeLay be a lobbyist next? [WP]
* Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) brings sadness to Washington state in an effort to take down Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.). [WP]
* Supreme Court justices spark laughter just from speaking funny. [USAT]

* Names & Faces: Ana Marie Cox becomes a regular contributor to Time magazine. [WP]
* Lloyd Grove’s Lowdown: Margaret Cho says Bush is too lazy to “be Hitler” and Laura Bush may be trying to kill her husband with second-hand smoke: “She seems like she hates him

Ladies and Gentlemen, the letter to Kim Eisler from Chris Matthews, in all its glory. But you’re hereby warned: Chris Matthews’ friends are going to laugh at you.

(transcription available after the jump)

Earlier: Chris Matthews’ Friends Are So Not Going To Sit With You At Lunch Anymore

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• Good night, New York City. We sure hope you’ve arranged alternate travel plans. [Gothamist] MORE »

• Time reporter Viveca Novak says Karl Rove was the likely source of a July 2003 article about Valerie Plame. Novak: “I remember [Rove's lawyer] looking at me and saying something to the effect of ‘Karl doesn’t have a [Matt Cooper] problem. He was not a source for Matt.’ I responded instinctively, thinking he was trying to spin me, and said something like, ‘Are you sure about that? That’s not what I hear around Time.’ He looked surprised and very serious.” [Time, NYT, WSJ]
• Sen. Frist threatens to use the “nuclear option” to save Samuel Alito from a filibuster. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.): “We’re not close to a deal.” [WP, NYT, LAT]
• White House flack Trent Duffy: “What you will see more of next year is the president going back to the basics — winning the war and growing the economy and creating jobs.” [WT]
• Sen. Clinton’s quiet, centrist approach to Iraq “is drawing increasing scorn from liberal activists.” [WP]
• Ronald Brownstein on Alito’s abortion memos: “It’s still not clear these disclosures will seriously threaten Alito’s confirmation. And if they do not, both sides might need to rethink basic assumptions about the politics of the Supreme Court.” [LAT]
• Gov. Mark Warner (D-Va.) tours battleground states for a head-start on ‘08. Warner: “As Democrats, what we have to do is put forward ideas and candidates that can win in places like Florida, that can win in places like Virginia.” [NYT]

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• Lack of bias for thee but not for me: Washington Times reporter (and Christian) Bill Sammon believes “Most stories…have a moral dimension, and ignoring that dimension misrepresents the news.” [Christian Examiner via Romenesko]
• CNN lost viewers under Jon Klein. You know what this means: MORE COOPER. [TVNewser]
• ABC-purchased Grand Theft Auto changes Jake Tapper’s life, providing street cred and razor sharp instincts to hide when the scent of pigs is in the air. [Down and Dirty via FishbowlDC]
• NBC names new news division prez… and they’re going to look into this whole “news on the web” thing. Also CBS Evening News gets a producer. Is that still on? [NYT, AP]
• Bizarre disappearing John Huey mugs. [Gawker]

Among the many things to be thankful for last week we counted a Thanksgiving Eve column by Lloyd Grove, and its coverage of an appearance by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. During an interview held by Norm Pearlstine, Scalia mocked schoolchildren (Whining “The Constitution is a living document” while rolling his eyes), taunted media elites (”You can dish it out, but you can’t take it.”) and defended the court’s decision to hear Bush v. Gore using what Al Kamen today called the “appearance-of-ridiculousness standard”:

What did you expect us to do? Turn the case down because it wasn’t important enough? Or give the Florida Supreme Court another couple of weeks in which the United States could look ridiculous?

Sure, why let Florida have all the fun? MORE »

Another missive from the humid hothouse of journalist-on-journalist love. This afternoon’s entertainment was a Q&A between the cosy duo of Time’s Matt Cooper and Time’s Jim Kelly. Kelly, Time’s editor, kicked things off with a recap of the past 28 months, from the Cooper’s “double super secret background” convo with Karl Rove (in which Rove mentioned, sans name, that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA) to Judith Miller’s aspen-turning move in yesterday’s New York Times. Summing up, Kelly turned to Cooper and asked: “So do you have any idea what the case is about?”

Restrained titters.

Cooper: “Well, yes.” He said this whole thing is about the White House “outing a covert CIA agent as punishment” for going against the administration.

Then he told us some things we didn’t know, and they are after the jump.

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The idea — as cited by Lloyd Gove in his column today — that TIME’s Matt Cooper is fishing for a job at the NYT because the newsweekly’s hire of Mike Allen has made him feel “a bit crowded” seems off to us. First of all, Allen is not that much taller than Dickerson. Does hog the covers, tho. And then there’s the question of whether Matt’s fishing… or was he pushed? Far from being crowded, we hear he may be lonely: Since his bravura performance of “I Was THISCLOSE to Jail” on the courthouse steps last month, the reception by his colleagues has been stilted and the magazine’s editors aren’t sure what to do with him. (Jim Kelley’s response to inquiries about Cooper’s future in last week’s NYT piece were somewhat less than enthusiastic: “It’s not a matter of appropriateness; it’s a matter of effectiveness.”)

The Times, however, has the perfect role for Cooper: foil. Our sources say that it’s not so much the Times that’s interested in Cooper as it is managing editor Bill Keller. The rank-and-file, on the other hand, wonder why Keller would be interested. We suspect Keller is looking for a soulmate, or at least a cellmate. With almost-a-martyr Cooper on staff, Keller might succeed in muddying the waters over of the paper’s internal investigation of Judith Miller’s role in the leaking of the name of CIA agent Valerie Wilson (Plame, whatever).

Please don your tin-foil hats before we continue after the jump.

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