[New York, September 9. Image via Splash]

So the Great Long March of Tears is still going on. I should make a lewd joke here about how crowded the Foggy Bottom Metro stop is but I'm too cold and tired. But yeah, wow. Also I kept walking and went to Georgetown for lunch like a proper lady (where I was just served a pot pie larger than my head. YES WE CAN eat the hell out of this). In case no one has said this yet: the scene on the Mall was beautiful. Everyone was lovely and loving. And when Barack Obama became president, a huge crowd of white seagulls that'd been begging for scraps at the Washington Monument was suddenly scared aloft by the immense scream that rose from the crowd, wheeling away like doves but less TACKY. Gorgeous. Anyway the reason I was writing was because of the attached example of DC's awesomeness: Metro advertisements for military contractors! Talk about a niche market, baby!

Weirdest moment of last night's Huffington Post ball at the Newseum: New York Times politics reporter Jeff Zeleny back to back with the guy from that new romcom with crazy Katherine Heigl. Neither had any idea who the other is. He's hot, even if he is the poor man's Clive Owen. Right by them was former MSNBC head turned publicist Dan Abrams. Blecho. Robert DeNiro and his lovely partner Grace Higjtower were in good spirits; Martha Stewart, who is always at these DC parties, and always dressed in the same 70s-era nature tones (running the gamut from peach to beige to ecru) was down by the door by midnight, undoubtedly waiting for her poor driver. This was a confusing party. The guest list was literally as thick as a phone book. This party existed, I think, to convey Arianna's social dominance but i'm not sure that message got across: not exclusive enough, and, relatedly, too crowded. The coat check alone was the size of a NYC block. Arianna made a couple of unintelligible speeches. If she was smart, she was appearing via satellite from home! Getting home from the Newseum, which is on Pennsylvania Ave and fifty feet from the Mall, was a horrorshow: fences and barricades and cops and, well, wow. DC is very nanny-state. The automated voices on the Metro are like something out of Robocop, repeating endlessly as people get trapped in the doors. The trashcans in the museums actually say "thank you" when you put trash in them, which is gross. But nothing can disrupt the glee today! Not crowds, not cold, not annoying social control measures. Today is awesome!

—10 minutes later—

Okay I have NO IDEA where I am but there are a LOT of people here. Some white ones too, as they did not stay home. But what is genius is that there are volunteer greeters everywhere who are like, HI, GOOD MORNING, WHHHOOOOO! Which reminds you that this is a party and you are supposed to be happy and nice to everyone. It's yet another brilliantanifestatiom of the Obama organizational machine. OMG MY HANDS ARE COLD.

This is what you'll see if you're tomfool enough to come down—miles and miles of porta potties and chainlink fences and jumbotrons on the Mall. On the plus side, it's not so cold AND everyone is in a really good mood. Also I almost got rundown by a guy in a Toyota with an "I heart lesbians" thing hanging from his rearview. That's weird. So yes: thousands of people are milling around before the capital and mostly people are yelling Obama a lot. Understandably! He is the reason for the season.

Only two of these National Guard guys were hot. Not at all like that commercial that plays before every movie everywhere!

Chevron has done full-car buyouts on some Metro trains. It's like pictures of people and then script that says like: I will leave the car at home more! Ugh. And then in small print: HUMAN ENERGY is a trademakr of chevron intellectual property llc. Heh. But! Then in the stations downtown there's like pictures of mermaids and aliens holding coal, with no text. This is an awesome campaign about how "clean coal" is a total sham. Which it is! Also? Refill your Metro passes now because OMG, the lines already!

All quiet in Arlington, except for the power-walkers! Apparently people still do that. D.C.'s glory days were the 80s, and they never passed, which Burn After Reading exhibited quite nicely. (Brie-passing at parties!) So driving into DC last night was a trip. There were all these helpful big light-up signs that said "NO PARKING IN DC" and stuff like that, which was hilariously unuseful. We came in through NorthEast and can I just say something for our friend Sister Toldja? It was a black people party! Totally excellent. The thing about this inauguration is: yes white people will come in droves. But also they won't leave NW, Chevy Chase and Arlington for one second. So they are easy to avoid. Also I saw a graffiti swastika in a rest stop bathroom on the way down but mid-day tomorrow, it will disappear when racism ends with our new awesome President.

Today, The View brings us Tom Cruise; on Monday comes the queen of foaming scandal, the one and only Ann Coulter. (Joy Behar says she's a "bitch"! Whoopi Goldberg says she's gonna beat her up!)

What a daring weekend sandwich. First let us deal with the Cruise. So last night, The View ladies were on stage in the New York Times auditorium, just rappin' with Times TV reporter Jacques Steinberg, who couldn't have been happier to see them. (Literally, he was all, "Put the rumors to rest! They really do like each other!" Um, what do you know, you saw them backstage for eight minutes?) There was an audience of like 795 middle-aged women, 3 unhappy straight guys, and 2 thrilled gay guys.

Anyway, yes, because there is no stopping the promotions for the tepid Valkyrie, because $63 million is NOT ENOUGH for Cruise-Wagner productions, they have taped a show with Tom Cruise to air today... now in fact (if you are on the East Coast). And so Barbara Walters apparently comes at him all sneaky with the Barbara-fu and they bring up the death of poor Jett Travolta, because obviously Tom Cruise and John Travolta are besties because they are in the same sorority.

So The View-ettes were super-teasy about it because they are all thinking, oh let us please still have good ratings now that the election is over, but! Apparently Barbara asks Tom Cruise about how in his religion — and she calls it a religion, not Scientology — they're not supposed to take pills or see doctors and that is why everyone on the Internet is convinced that Xenu killed Jett Travolta.

And Tom Cruise says, she said, "We do go to doctors and we do have medication." And apparently he gets all weepy! Oh God! "He doesn't say anything — it's not what he says," said Whoopi Goldberg. And they were all like, like, "yikes!"

Okay, we might actually have to watch this. Also they said the Tom Cruise was there most "sincere" guest of all time. That is so odd. SO! Ann Coulter!

What are you going to ask Ann on Monday, someone in the audience wanted to know.

Here is what Joy Behar said she is thinking: "'Why are you such a bitch?'"

And: "She just wants the books to sell — she'll say whatever she has to say."

"The real thing is to look bemused at her," said Whoopi.

So the plan was maybe not to give her any scandalous attention. "It would be a coup for her," said Sherri Shepherd.

"I'm going to drink a lot of water so I have to go to the bathroom," said Whoopi. "Then if she comes in? I'll beat her behind."

"We should just ask her the dumbest and silliest questions," said Sherri.

"Like 'are you blonde on the top and the bottom?'" said Whoopi.

Gosh, what else? Elsewise, Barbara talked a little about the news biz in this crazy bloggy modern age of ours. "Everybody screams, everybody gives their opinions — and they're considered journalists and they are," she said. And: "Now you don't want heads of state — you want Britney Spears. I don't want to lament it. This is the way it is."

Also! There was a classic Sherri Shepherd moment about how upset she was over all the hate mail when she came out strongly against gay marriage and in favor of Prop 8. "It's hard to hear people say 'you're a bigot!'" she said. Oh, that is so sad — you gross bigot!

P.S. Tracie was supposed to cover this but allegedly she became ill at the very last moment so I pinch-hitted. (Pinch-hat? Um.) So at one point The View ladies were totally talking about what a disaster Mario Cantone was on The View because you just cannot have a man at a lady-party, even if he is gay (or, as Joy Behar put it, "a gay guy as a sort of intermediary," because, uh, what are we, INTERSEX?), so sorry to bust up the lady-time, I am taking my penis and going home now. Also! I got through this whole thing without mentioning Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who sucks.