• Hillary Clinton has not agreed to be Obama's Secretary of State even if she is officially offered it. [Politico]
• She has, however, been asked to head Ted Kennedy's health reform task force next year. [The Hill]
• Mr. Jowls will remain the Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security. Jane Hamsher and others say, in so many words, fuck that guy. [Politico, Firedoglake, Politico]
• Chuck Norris might be able to defeat ninjas, cowboys and anyone who talks back, but what he's really, really scared of is boys who like to kiss other boys (we assume that, like most raging homophobes, he furiously masturbates to girl-on-girl porn). Chuck Norris, I have watched gay bear porn and survived with nary a scratch. I double dog dare you. [Queerty]

• In the mean time, Eric Holder appears poised to become this country's first African-American attorney general. Some people have their panties all in a bunch that he might or might not have had something to do with the 11th hour pardon of Marc Rich in the Clinton Administration. [Newsweek]
• Beau Biden, on the other hand, will not accept an appointment to his father's Senate seat and will likely deploy to Iraq as planned. [Washington Post]
• Less gracious is outgoing Representative Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colorado) who has yet to officially concede the race she lost in a landslide to Democrat Betsy Markey or thank her staff, but what would you expect from the woman who staked her legislative career on trying to pass a Constitutional amendment to forever prohibit same sex marriage? [Politico]
• Speaking of controversial pardons, apparently Ted Stevens wants one. [Politico]
• Republicans are trying to decide whether to try and trample people's rights in order to regain some semblance of political relevance, or whether they'd like to try doing stuff for the Real Americans they so desperately swear they represent. [Huffington Post]
• Chuck Hagel pretty much said that Rush Limbaugh can go fuck himself during a speech. I say that all the time, Chuck! Want to grab a drink and make fun of him sometime? [CNN]
• Diane Sawyer conducted her interview with Ashley Alexandra Dupre, originally famous for fucking former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer for money, who, if this picture is any guide, will heretofore be known for sneaking into Sarah Palin's tanning beds one too many times and stealing Jane Fonda's steez from 9 to 5. It's unclear whether she actually says anything to make the interview worth watching, but since she's probably not going to dish about whether Spitzer really tried to fuck her up the ass without a condom while wearing his socks and singing show tunes, I'm guessing not. Fine, I never really heard rumors of show tunes. [Huffington Post]

Kaplan muses, "While it isn't humongous, per se, it is a solid, round, black, class-A boo-tay. Try as Michelle might to cover it with those Mamie Eisenhower skirts and sheath dresses meant to reassure mainstream voters, the butt would not be denied." Kaplan sees Michelle Obama's butt as the a signifier of her blackness, as a symbol of what it means to be black:

Lord knows, it's time the butt got some respect. Ever since slavery, it's been both vilified and fetishized as the most singular of all black female features, more unsettling than dark skin and full lips, the thing that marked black women as uncouth and not quite ready for civilization (of course, it also made them mighty attractive to white men, which further stoked fears of miscegenation that lay at the heart of legal and social segregation). In modern times, the butt has demarcated class and stature among black society itself. Emphasizing it or not separates dignified black women from ho's, party girls from professionals, hip-hop from serious. (Black women are not the only ones with protruding behinds, by the way, but they're certainly considered its source. How many gluteally endowed nonblack women have been derided for having a black ass? Well, Hillary, for one.)

But mostly, for Kaplan, this joy over Michelle Obama's butt is personal. Michelle Obama makes her feel better about her own backside. "It's OK for black women to be heavier than most, but we still have to conform to a universal (that is, white) standard of thinness and shape. This means that, even if you're 120 pounds, your butt better not account for more than 2 percent of that." Now, Kaplan claims, "we'll all be able to wear leggings to board meetings; we'll sport pencil skirts sans the long jackets meant to cover the offending rear at big conferences where we have to make a good impression."

Why is this writer obsessed with asses? Why is she working out her issues on the home page of Salon? Why would Salon choose to run this as its lead story? Are we really having a discussion about the future First Lady's bottom? Would this have ever been done to Laura Bush? Is a Hillary Clinton-made-me-love-my cankles feature in the works? (Latoya from Racialicious says a reader named Virginia wrote about Kaplan's piece, complaining: "She is defining Michelle Obama and black women in general by their butts and hair. There are so many other traits that she could have discussed." Agreed.) In any case, while it's great that Kaplan feels a kinship or a personal alliance with Michelle Obama, it's upsetting that she reduces an incredibly smart and accomplished woman to a body part, something completely beyond her control.

Oh, and Kaplan has a tip for the First Lady-to-be about her hair:

I can't talk about Michelle's butt without acknowledging her hair, another physical feature that stirs anxiety about black female difference. Let me just say that I hope that gets unleashed, too. How sad that, in order for a black family to prevail — because Michelle and the girls were all running for office, not just Barack — they had to sublimate their blackness like crazy, starting with the visuals. Michelle's ethnic butt might have snuck under the radar, but an ethnic do wouldn't have stood a chance.

First Lady Got Back [Salon]
Salon: "First Lady Got Back” [Racialicious]

DailyCandy Everywhere wants us to drop $3500 on an ass. Not our own, mind you, but a 4-legged, miniature one with big beautiful eyes.
DailyCandy Boston seems to be implying that coffee mugs can double as sex toys.
DailyCandy Dallas thinks that ambiguous, pretentious sayings contain hidden meanings. They also think we should gain access to such phrases through expensive jewelry, as opposed to, oh, a fortune cookie.
DailyCandy Los Angeles seems to be out to offend the Gilbert and Sullivan estate.
DailyCandy Philadelphia thinks adult women still aspire to be the fairy princesses they wanted to be at age 5.