According to reports, Obama will be adding somewhere around 30,000 more troops and asking for more time to make sure the country is stable before looking at a time table for withdrawal.

Obama will emphasize that Afghan security forces need more time, more schooling and more U.S. combat backup to be up to the job on their own, and he will make tougher demands on the governments of Pakistan as well as Afghanistan.

In the capital of Kabul, some Afghans said they were worried that the troop increase was too much like an occupation - a scenario particularly worrisome to Afghans who still remember living through an oppressive Soviet regime.

The additional troops are there to assist with the stabilization of the country while the Administration steps up its efforts to repair infrastructure. Nation-building is slow going, often producing results that are hard to measure. The Washington Post spoke with experts on nation building, who explain:

Diplomats and officials involved in past nation-building efforts generally agree that the process works best when warring factions are ready to make peace. Elections, while important to lend legitimacy to a new government, should not be rushed — creating lasting institutions is more important. The international community must have realistic, if modest, goals. Regional experts need to be consulted, and neighboring countries should be brought on board.

And nation-building should be done primarily by the people of the country involved, with the outside world there to assist, diplomats said.

Above all, there must be resources.

"More manpower and more money produces better, faster results," said former U.S. diplomat James F. Dobbins, now with the Rand Corp., who has had firsthand experience in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. "There is a correlation between the commitment and the achievement."

He added: "Lesson one was decisive force. Employ a force decisive enough and impressive enough to deter any violent resistance."

Most of the experts admit that in order to have a successful strategy, most of the nations' factions must be committed to moving forward:

Many of the officials involved in past nation-building missions called it a critical yet common mistake for outsiders to impose their views on a country, without regard for the country's unique circumstances, and before all the internal factions have reached agreement.

That is the main problem in Afghanistan, said many with familiarity there.

Not surprisingly, the opposition to the troop increase is mounting before Obama has even said a word.

Other Democrats are skeptical about investing any more time and money into Afghanistan without clearly defined goals:

Democratic Rep. John Murtha - just back from a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan - said Monday that he never got a clear definition of what constitutes an "achievable victory" for the United States and fears that American commanders are assuming more time for the war effort than voters at home will allow.

"I am still very nervous about this whole thing," Murtha told POLITICO. "If you had 10 years, it might work; if you had five, you could make a difference. But you don't have that long." [...]

"What is victory? It's a good question," said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.). "I'm not as prone to jumping into wars as I used to be. He spent two months deciding," Berman said of Obama. "I think I can spend a few weeks."

Dick Cheney, who seems to have forgotten that he and Bush spent their time in office wreaking havoc on international relations and fighting wars just for the hell of it, has decided, for some strange reason, that his opinion still counts. He talks to the Politico, insinuating that Obama is a punk:

In a 90-minute interview at his suburban Washington house, Cheney said the president's "agonizing" about Afghanistan strategy "has consequences for your forces in the field."

"I begin to get nervous when I see the commander in chief making decisions apparently for what I would describe as small ‘p' political reasons, where he's trying to balance off different competing groups in society," Cheney said.

"Every time he delays, defers, debates, changes his position, it begins to raise questions: Is the commander in chief really behind what they've been asked to do?"

Obama administration officials have complained ever since taking office that they face a series of unpalatable - if not impossible - national security decisions in Afghanistan and Pakistan because of the Bush administration's unwavering insistence on focusing on Iraq.

But Cheney rejected any suggestion that Obama had to decide on a new strategy for Afghanistan because the one employed by the previous administration failed.

Of course not. Because Bush/Cheney didn't do anything wrong. The denial continues:

During the interview, Cheney laced his concerns with a broader critique of Obama's foreign and national security policy, saying Obama's nuanced and at times cerebral approach projects "weakness" and that the president is looking "far more radical than I expected."

"Here's a guy without much experience, who campaigned against much of what we put in place ... and who now travels around the world apologizing," Cheney said. "I think our adversaries - especially when that's preceded by a deep bow ... - see that as a sign of weakness."

Party differences aside, both the Democrats and the Republicans are teaming up on one thing: no one wants to pay the cost of sending more troops.

The hefty price tag of the pending Afghan troop increase is already drawing opposition from many Congressional Democrats, deepening Mr. Obama's estrangement from his own party over the conflict.

Some Democrats are coalescing around a new proposal to levy a war tax to help fund the conflict. The proposal by Wisconsin Democratic Rep. David Obey, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, would impose a 1% tax on most Americans that rises to 5% for wealthier citizens. The administration has yet to weigh in on Mr. Obey's proposal, which would likely have a difficult time getting passed.

"If the president intends to go in over our objections, he should have to bear the burden of asking for a tax to pay for it," said Rep. Mike Honda (D., Calif.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee who supports the new tax. "You're talking about $30 billion or $40 billion per year in new spending. It's expensive."

Congressional Republicans have pressed Mr. Obama to fully heed his commanders' requests for more troops and military resources. Republicans, who oppose the idea of a war tax, generally favor borrowing the additional money necessary for the Afghan surge or reallocating other government funds.

Obama, Karzai hold hour-long video conference [AP/MSNBC]
A test for the blocks needed to rebuild a nation [Washington Post]
Democrats 'nervous' about Afghanistan plan [Politico]
Dick Cheney slams President Obama for projecting ‘weakness' [Politico]
Fight Looms on How to Pay for New War Plan [WSJ]

A poll released by Vanity Fair and 60 Minutes reveals that Rush Limbaugh is considered the most influential conservative voice, by a wide margin:

The radio host was picked by 26 percent of those who responded, followed by Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck at 11 percent. Actual politicians - former Vice President Dick Cheney and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin - were the choice of 10 percent each.

However, that influence that Limbaugh and Beck enjoy can be transferred to possible candidates in the form of positive coverage and endorsements. The Washington Post sums up the media power dynamics, explaining:

In a new Washington Post poll, Palin beats other GOP leaders on two questions: who best represents the party's core values, and who Republicans would vote for if the presidential nomination battle were held today. But she has particular appeal to the loyal followers of Limbaugh and Beck, two of the most popular conservative talk show hosts in the country.

Overall, 18 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents cited her as the person most representative of the party's core values, the highest percentage among prominent Republican figures. Among those who regularly listen to Limbaugh, however, Palin was cited by 48 percent, and among Beck's viewers, it was 35 percent, far surpassing others.

Interestingly enough, some party members are still lukewarm on Palin, so conservative activists have launched a new campaign - Tricky Dick 2.0 in 2012!

The organization - "Draft Dick Cheney 2012" - launched on Friday, and unveiled their new Web site. Their aim: To convince the former vice president to seek the Republican presidential nomination in the next race for the White House. But there may be a major roadblock to the group's pitch - Cheney himself.

"The 2012 race for the Republican nomination for President will be about much more then who will be the party's standard bearer against Barack Obama, the race is about the heart and soul of the GOP," said Christopher Barron, one of the organizers of the Draft Cheney movement. "There is only one person in our party with the experience, political courage and unwavering commitment to the values that made our party strong – and that person is Dick Cheney."

Sigh.

Matthew Yglesias shares my sentiments:

I know some liberals who are excited about the prospect of a joke candidate like Sarah Palin or Dick Cheney getting the GOP nomination in 2012. Not me. The basic fact of the matter is that power tends to alternate between the two political parties. Ultimately, the nation's interests require both parties to nominate the best people possible. So I hope the Republicans find someone who's very smart and compelling and does an excellent job of identifying and explaining the flaws in Barack Obama's approach. Cheney couldn't possibly win a presidential election . . . unless somehow he could, in which case the country would be set for a world of pain.

Poll: Limbaugh is most influential conservative [AP]
Palin particularly popular among fans of Limbaugh and Beck [Washington Post]
New group tries to convince Cheney to run in 2012 [CNN]
Cheney for President? [Think Progress]

Earlier: Purity Balls: Republican Party Proposes Test For Politicians

A Times profile by Mark Leibovich makes Liz Cheney sound like the Hobgoblin to her dad's Green Goblin. Says Mary Cheney,

I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any daylight at all between Liz's and my father's views. It's not because she's been indoctrinated. It's because he's right.

Right about what, exactly? Well, she told Sam Donaldson that "waterboarding isn't torture." And in the Larry King clip above, she says the reason birthers are so angry is that Obama isn't defending America. Cheney echoed this sentiment at the Nashville Smart Girl Summit, an event for conservative women also attended by such luminaries as Michelle Malkin. In her speech there, she asked,

Mr. President, in a ticking time-bomb scenario, with American lives at stake, are you really unwilling to subject a terrorist to enhanced interrogation to get information that would prevent an attack?

Cheney is currently helping her dad write his memoirs, which she says will occupy her until 2011, but she won't say whether she'll run for office after that. Since Dick Cheney is remembered by many as basically evil incarnate, it's not clear whether she would be a viable candidate — Leibovitch mentions "the question of whether the 'Cheney message' on national security - which essentially translates to an aggressive and interventionist approach - is something the Republican Party should be trumpeting, or burying." But the former VP's approval rating has actually risen since he left office, and some are calling his daughter a promising young "rock star." Conservative blogger Fingers Malloy says she's "one of the fresh faces of our movement," and Republican foreign-policy adviser Dan Senor says, "I think Liz is ably representing the next wave of voices."

It's hard to see someone whose views are identical to Dick Cheney's as a "fresh face," especially since neoconservatism now seems, despite its prefix, hopelessly dated. Nonetheless, Liz Cheney's pro-torture hawkishness and criticisms of Obama are clearly popular with the xenophobic set, if no one else. It's possible to imagine a pretty terrifying 2012 ticket with Sarah Palin at the top and Liz Cheney as VP. We'll take Meghan McCain over that any day.

New Cheney Taking Stage For The G.O.P. [NYT]

That's former Vice President Dick Cheney talking to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday yesterday. Initially, when the Cheney interview broke and I had a chance to read over the transcripts, I laughed. Let's leave aside the fact of some of the more blatant reversals (like the one I quoted above) and his constant return to the chest-beating declarations of having saved millions of American lives by preventing more attacks.

This is all ridiculously obvious, right?

The New York Times' summary explains:

Mr. Cheney described the inquiry as an "intensely partisan, politicized look back at the prior administration" intended to placate the left wing of the Democratic Party. "It's clearly a political move," he said. "I mean, there's no other rationale for why they're doing this."

In naming the prosecutor last week, Mr. Holder said he had no choice but to move forward with the investigation after the Justice Department's ethics office recommended a new review of several interrogation cases and he reviewed a 2004 report on the interrogation program by the C.I.A. inspector general that was released Monday under a court order.

The report described a variety of abuses, including suggestions about sexually assaulting a detainee's relatives and staging mock executions as well as the accounts of one prisoner who was repeatedly knocked out with pressure applied to his carotid artery and another who was lifted off the grounds by his arms, which were tied behind his back.

There's no rationale for this? We are describing crimes of war that were either sanctioned or encouraged by our government. We aren't talking about what the definition of "is" is anymore; we're seeing a former Vice President defend torture and other unsanctioned behavior as part of a larger terror strategy. Don't get me wrong, perjury is serious business. But it's interesting to see where the rule of law seems to matter greatly (in which we ask the President about his sex life) and where it is being brushed under the rug (in which we protect our nation by ignoring the founding documents and moral codes of conduct.) Time magazine's Swampland blog adds a interesting twist to the conversation, noting:

Power drills and mock executions are not the only extralegal techniques that CIA employees are alleged to have committed. One CIA contractor, according to the CIA Inspector General, is alleged to have beaten an Afghan detainee to death with a large metal flashlight and his foot. Released criminal records show that another CIA employee was interrogating a detainee at Abu Ghraib prison in a stress position with a bag over his head, when the detainee died of asphyxiation. Assuming that Cheney did not misspeak, his statement to Wallace suggests that he believes these deaths are "OK' given the circumstances.

There are the beginnings here of a possible pattern in Cheney's thoughts—the suggestion that violations of law in the service of a greater national good are forgivable. As TIME's Massimo Calabresi and Michael Weisskopf wrote in a cover story last month, the disagreement between President George Bush and Cheney over the pardoning of Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby similarly focused on this question of whether the rule of law should be sacrosanct. Bush saw his administration as a sort of repudiation of failings of the Bill Clinton, who was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice for his statements to prosecutors about Monica Lewinsky. [...]

In the end, the Bush decision not to pardon Libby came down to Bush's conviction that the rule of law must be respected. It would be interesting to know if the former President now agrees with Cheney's contention that it was "OK" for CIA interrogators to go beyond what the law allowed.

So, no one is above the law, except the people who are above the law, who should not be questioned because it is obvious that they are serving the greater good. Right.

Also yesterday: Cheney's daughter Liz foolishly decided to stick with the lie that waterboarding isn't torture (Christopher Hitchens had a few thousand words to say about that), while John McCain decided to break with the party line, while still hedging:

"I was radically opposed to (harsh interrogations)," he said. "I think it harmed us. I think torturing harmed us. I have a number of anecdotes that could substantiate that. And I think it harmed our image in the world, but for us now to go back, I think would be a serious mistake."

John Kerry was a bit more frank, saying on "This Week":

"Dick Cheney has shown through the years, frankly, a disrespect for the constitution for sharing of information to Congress and a [dis]respect for the law and I'm not surprised that he's upset about this."

But will these strong statements in opposition be enough to unseat the idea that torture is justifiable in a civil society?

Perhaps not.

The media has been slammed (by other members of the media) for cosigning much of Cheney's claims. There was a widely panned op-ed published in the New York Times by a writer/novelist who openly accuses U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder of playing politics while saying that Holder's decision "serves to delegitimize our government itself." Andrew Sullivan dismissed the Fox News interview, writing:

"When it comes to Cheney, one of the most incompetent vice-presidents in the country's history, with a record of two grotesquely botched wars, war crimes and a crippling debt, Chris Wallace sounds like a teenage girl interviewing the Jonas Brothers. "

In addition, a Washington Post puff piece on Saturday which made it seem like Khalid Sheik Mohammed was really happy to help us discover the inner secrets of terrorism (after a few rounds with the drills and waterboarding sessions) was eviscerated at the Politico, Salon, and the Daily Dish, with Andrew Sullivan coming off vacation to say:

What is interesting to me is the Washington Post's editorial and institutional position in favor of not calling waterboarding and sleep deprivation what they have always been called in every court of law and every society including the US in recent times: torture. They refuse to use the word "torture" for an act that is memorialized in Cambodia's museum of torture. That's how deeply the Washington Post is enmeshed in the pro-torture forces in Washington. The refusal to use this word is a clear, political act by the Post in defense of the Bush administration's torture and abuse policies. It places the Washington Post as an adjunct to the Bush-Cheney policy of torturing thousands of prisoners across every theater of war and across the globe.

However, in all the din and angry reactions the articles, interviews, and reactions brought bubbling to the surface, there is still one question that I have not heard answered. If Cheney's assertions are true, and there are those who believe that protecting the nation comes before any rule of law or constitutional ideal, what do these people think they are saving?

RAW DATA: Transcript of Cheney on 'FOX News Sunday' [Fox News]
Cheney Offers Sharp Defense of C.I.A. Interrogation Tactics [NY Times]
Bill Clinton and the Meaning of "Is" [Slate]
What is the Rule of Law? [University of Iowa]
Dick Cheney And The Rule Of Law [Swampland]
Cheney digs in [Politico]
Believe Me, It's Torture [Vanity Fair]
McCain says CIA torture probe 'a mistake' [UPI]
Kerry Slams Cheney on 'This Week' [ABC News]
The C.I.A. in Double Jeopardy [NY Times]
Chris Wallace, A Teenage Girl Interviewing The Jonas Brothers [The Daily Dish]
How a Detainee Became An Asset [Washington Post]
Post Story Blosters Cheney [Politico]
The Washington Post's Cheney-ite defense of torture [Salon]
The Washington Post's Support For Torture [The Daily Dish]

I spent years walking among them, these humans, waiting for my chance to enter the corridors of human power and take it for my own. A run for Congress was easy, what with my youthful looks and exuberance... but then I realized that I couldn't stay young and beautiful forever, lest they began to suspect my true nature. Years of slowly searing my flesh in the hot sun, attended to only by my familiar, Lynne, while "working" for the vampire-led Halliburton, aged me enough that I could regain access to those who would lead. And then, one night, left alone with the son of a human scion I once grudgingly served, I was able to whisper sweet fantasies of ultimate power in his ear, causing his member to engorge with blood as I described all that we might rule together. I felt his body tremble against mine, his arms drawing me closer, his lips beseeching me to give all of that to him, as I ever so gently sank my teeth into his neck and began to feed.

Oh, like you didn't think Cheney was a bloodsucker?

It Was a Dark and Stormy Eight Years [Washington Post]

The Times is treating this story with all the gravity it deserves. It opens with the line, "The White House is bugged," and explains, "during an East Room interview with John Harwood for CNBC and The New York Times on Tuesday, a giant fly orbited Mr. Obama's head." A lot of jokes about "no-fly zones" and "buzz" follow.

But PETA's not laughing. In response to Obama's "fatally slapping" an offending fly, they sent him a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, which allows users to trap flies and release them outside (my desire to do dumb shit like this was curbed at the age of eight, when I asked my dad not to kill a spider and he responded, "What do you want me to do? Rehabilitate it and teach it a trade?"). Spokesman Bruce Friedrich says, "We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals. We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals." PETA calls the swatting an "execution" and recommends dealing with insects "kindly" by keeping your living space clean or, in the case of mosquitoes, taking B vitamins and rubbing yourself with vodka. This is also a good way to make people think you are an alcoholic, without the fun of drinking.

The Times offers several theories on the source of the fly infestation:

The chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who swatted at a fly in a recent interview, has blamed the opening of vents in the West Wing for the infestation, while Mr. Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, has blamed careless staff members who forgot to close unscreened windows, an official said.

The most disturbing piece of information in the story, however, is this:

There are numerous accounts of infestations in previous administrations, including a cameo by a fly during an Associated Press interview with Vice President Dick Cheney just a few days before Mr. Obama was sworn into office.

Clearly the initial flies were emitted by Dick Cheney himself, and are now breeding an army of tiny minions to undermine Obama. Cheney-flies, unfortunately, fear neither cleanliness nor vodka, but they may give up their secrets if waterboarded.

What Has 132 Rooms and Flies? [New York Times]
PETA wishes Obama hadn't swatted that fly [AP]
PETA miffed at President Obama's fly 'execution' [Politico]

• Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has told supposedly-defeated candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi to pursue his complaints about election irregularities "calmly," while Iranians continued to march in the streets, more leaders declared the elections invalid and forces continued arresting people. [NY Times]

• Elsewhere in the world, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has conditionally agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state, though he has no plans to stop further settlements, which complicates matters. [Reuters]
• Oh, hey, that bin Laden guy is still in Pakistan, says the CIA, not that it plans on doing much about that. [Breitbart]
• CIA Chief Leon Panetta thinks Dick Cheney wants someone to attack the U.S. just so he can say, "I told you so." No shit, Sherlock. [Reuters]
• Four of the Chinese Uighurs we imprisoned without cause in Guantanamo for years are now in Bermuda and loving it. [NY Times]
• We're apparently letting neo-Nazis is the U.S. Army now? [Salon]
• The Obama Administration has decided to mount a vociferous defense of the Defense of Marriage Act, and to fool people into thinking that it "has" to for anything other than craven pandering to conservatives. [AmericaBlog]
• Obama might also impose taxes on health insurance to pay for his health care plans - just like John McCain planned to do - because conservatives hate budget deficits that aren't their own. [Washington Post]
• But we're finally going to start regulating tobacco. [Washington Post]

• Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum suggests that Barack Obama, as an example to "African-American males," not take Michelle out on any more fancy dates, but just head to a local bar, throw back a beer, and head home. [Salon]

• Sarah Palin is gearing up for a trip to (honest!) Auburn, New York to celebrate the birth of William Seward, who bought Alaska from those pesky Russians she keeps seeing from her back porch. [Newser]
• Newt Gingrich feels bad for calling Judge Sonia Sotomayor a racist when he just meant to describe every thing she's ever said as racist. [Time]
• In unrelated news, 54 percent of Americans — some of whose votes Gingrich would need to win the Presidency in 2012 — think Sotomayor should be confirmed. Another 19 percent don't care about either Sotomayor or Newt. [LA Times]
• More depressingly, thanks to Dick Cheney, half of Americans think torture is justified. Why be an exception when we can just be as bad as every country, legal system, government and ideology we used to want not to emulate? [MSNBC]
• Both al Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden issued statements about how much Barack Obama sucks upon his arrival in Saudi Arabia earlier today. [UPI, Washington Post]
• Unlike his immediate predecessor, Obama has not held hands with anyone in the Middle East nation. [Washington Post]
• Obama, taking a page from John McCain's erstwhile health care plan, has said he's open to taxing employer-sponsored health insurance. [MSNBC]
• He nominated Republican Congressman John McHugh to be Secretary of the Army, apparently as part of his plan to isolate Republicans and make them seem even crazier. I doubt they need the help! [NY Times, Politico]
• And, with Tim Pawlenty announcing he won't seek a third term as governor of Minnesota, you have to wonder how far up Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's ass he plans to crawl after the Minnesota Supreme Court rules that Norm Coleman still isn't the Senator. [Talking Points Memo]

• Dick Cheney thinks: The Gays should be happy with whatever states choose not to discriminate against them; Americans should be glad George Tenet didn't have worse intel about the link between Saddam and Osama; and the Guantanamo detainees should be happy we didn't summarily execute them. [Time, CNN, MSNBC]

• David Duke is mad at Rush Limbaugh for comparing him to that Latina Sonia Sotomayor. But he's not a racist! [ThinkProgress]
• Dick Cheney wouldn't have nominated Judge Sotomayor, but even Dick Cheney is smart enough not to call her a racistwhile he's trying to rehab his image. [Politico]
• Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, however, is not as smart as Dick Cheney. [Politico]
• Sotomayor begins the obligatory meetings-with-Senators today; let's hope she wore some comfortable shoes. [Politico]
• The Obama Administration denies that any of the images of American detainees subject to the ACLU release lawsuit depict sexual abuse, as was reported last week. Please note the careful wording. [Salon]
• The Administration also says that it decided not to release the photos because Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Malik objected and threatened to force us to withdraw even earlier than he planned, which is not nearly as dirty as it sounds. [McClatchy]
• Tom Tancredo staffer Marcus Epstein is a crazy-ass racist who assaulted a woman on the street last year because she was black, and he won't be going to law school now because of it. [DCeiver]
• Kim Jong Il's son, Kim Jong Un, who is 7 years younger than I am, will be taking over the nuclear-armed country of North Korea. This is gonna go well! [BBC]
• Eliot Spitzer has spent a lot of money on sex workers. [NY Times]
• Norm Coleman has spent a lot of money masturbating to his electoral fantasies in Minnesota courts. [NY Times]
• Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has finally learned how to relax and submit peacefully to our new Chinese overlords. [NY Times]
• You are correct: I have sex on the brain.

• Mel Gibson "completely lost it" this weekend, according to a fellow churchgoer, who said he stood up in front of the congregation and "paced back and forth, furiously telling the congregation that he would not stand by and be judged and scrutinized."

• The source added, "Mel got up on his stage — the altar — and went off. He tried to intimidate the parishioners by staring at everyone with his angry eyes. Mel even threatened to shut down the church if people kept gossiping about him. The bottom line is that if Mel hadn't cheated on his wife and gotten his Russian girlfriend pregnant, there wouldn't be much to gossip about – he created this mess, and now he's trying to control it." [Radar Online]
• Nicole Kidman is denying rumors that she and Keith Urban are adopting a baby from Vietnam. Dang Minh Dao, deputy of the Department of International Adoption at the Ministry of Justice in Hanoi, told Australia's New Idea magazine, "Yes, Nicole Kidman wants a baby from Vietnam. We've been approached by the American Embassy." However her spokeswoman says: "I am aware of this rumour out of Australia's New Idea tabloid. It is a complete fabrication, there is no truth to it whatsoever." [The Daily Mail]
• Susan Boyle's brother Gerry said even though she's being treated for exhaustion after coming in second on Britain's Got Talent he knows she'll be OK. "She is feeling a bit exhausted. She is a bit tired and maybe even a wee bit homesick," he said. "First and foremost we have to make sure she is happy, and she is - she wouldn't change all this for the world. It would be nice to get her back home for a couple of days. But she will bounce back - we know our Susan." [The Sun]
• We know TMZ is expanding to cover political figures, but this clip of Dick Cheney is still disturbing. A reporter questions him like a Hills star stumbling out of a nightclub, asking if Cheney thinks the Obamas should have gone to see a Broadway show ("I don't know why not"), and if he's a Susan Boyle fan ("Sure, she's good"). [TMZ]
• We've lost count of how many times we've heard this: Britney Spears may be dating her agent Jason Trawick, because there's no other explanation for Brit going to Starbucks with a business associate. "In my eyes, Britney and Jason are definitely together," says one of the paparazzi stalking Brit. "I've never seen any other celebrity spend as much time with their agent as Brit does - vacation in Costa Rica, dinner, the Bahamas, running out to get Starbucks on a Saturday afternoon - I mean, it's not just business as usual." [Fox News]
• In honor of what would have been Marilyn Monroe's 83rd birthday, LIFE.com has released a series of never-before-seen photos of Monroe taken in 1950 by photographer Ed Clark. [People]
• Perez Hilton claimed last week that he never hired ghostwriters, so Guanabee hired a handwriting expert to study his infamous doodles and somehow she determined that he's totally lying. [Guanabee]
• Nadya Suleman's mother lost her house this morning to auction. Rather than helping her mom save her childhood home, Nadya recently bought a new home for almost the same amount of money that here mother owed. [Perez Hilton]
• Since EMI was taken over by Terra Firma in 2007, Joss Stone has become desperate to leave the label and is willing to give back £1.2million of her £7.5million advance to get out of her contract. "Joss has completely lost faith in EMI. It's all pie charts and products and there's no creativity. She has no working relationship with them and no confidence they will support her or market her album properly," says an insider. EMI won't let her go and is taking legal action to sue her because she won't turn over the master tapes for her new album Color Me Free. [The Daily Mail]
• Lily Allen is one of the celebrities featured in a new ad campaign to promote Britain's National Portrait Gallery. Her photo will be featured in an ad along with the caption "vocalist, lyricist, florist." Before her music career took off, Allen was training to be a florist. [Mirror]
• Pink's 14-week Australian tour is helping her rekindle her marriage to Carey Hart. Though scheduling conflicts caused them to break up, they've coordinated their tours so they're spending most of their time in the same cities. "It's the most time we've ever been able to spend together," said Pink. [News.com.au]
• Gordon Ramsay had to sell his Ferrari to keep his restaurant empire in business. He said his company expanded too quickly. "Tenacity and ambition overtook me. We thought we could do anything, that we could not fail. We flew too high, too fast," he said, adding, "God, I loved that Ferrari." [The Mirror]
• Looks like Ryan Cabrera's career isn't going too well. For just $24,500 you can purchase a one hour private performance by Cabrera through Sam's Club's online store. [Perez Hilton]
• Steve-O was ordered by a judge to enter rehab in 2008 and now he's marking each step of his recovery with a new tattoo. He has been clean for over a year and got another tattoo this weekend. "He was talking a lot about sobriety and passing another landmark," says a source. "He seemed like he was getting the tattoo on the back of his shoulder to mark a new sober period. He was in really good spirits." [The Daily Express]
• Zac Efron really wants to be in Vanessa Hudgens' new movie Sucker Punch because he wants to work with Sach Snyder. "I think it's an all-girl movie," said Efron. "But if there's any way to be in that film, I'd do it. I'd play a girl if I had to." [E!]
• Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart had dinner together after hte MTV Movie Awards. The surest sign that they're secretly dating is them having dinner in public surrounded by paparazzi. [Radar Online]
• Pearl Jam is recording a new ad for Target, and the company may be one of a group of partners financing their next album. [Billboard]
• Kimora Lee Simmons wrote an editorial for the Huffington Post about 14-year-old Trevor Casey, who was beaten by police. She writes: "As a mother of two beautiful daughters and one son, I am horrified at the way that our young black males are stereotyped: as negligible and disposable and destined for trouble." [The Huffington Post]
• Morgan Freeman says of playing Nelson Mandela in a new movie directed by Clint Eastwood, "If you are playing a living figure who's revered by the world, you've got yourself a major, major undertaking. You've got to do this without embarrassing yourself, your audience, and especially Madiba [Mandela's nickname]. Knowing that, you can be entirely too self-conscious. There are pitfalls, but I am going to be working with Clint." [Style.com]
• Natasha Henstridge says she's damaged her body in her pursuit to be thin, including taking pills and over the counter supplements. "I've done some things that probably weren't the smartest things in the world," says Henstridge. "All of a sudden when you decide to go clean, things are changing in your body because you done a bit of damage," [People]
• Pete Wentz's New York City bar Angels & Kings has been temporarily shut down for allegedly serving alcohol to minors. "There was an outstanding legal issue which the owners are now working to correct," says a spokesperson. [People]
• Christie Brinkley says: "I would never get married again. With what I know I don't see why anyone would get married." But she adds, "I totally believe in true love. And I think couples should celebrate their love over and over again." She doesn't think people need to formalize it though. "In fact, right at the beginning of a relationship, I would formalize an exit strategy," she says. [Ladies' Home Journal]
• Stephen Colbert says he no longer fears an audience not laughing. "The first director I had at Second City said, 'You have to learn to love the bomb,' and I didn't know what he meant for a very long time," he said. "But there's something nice about getting to the point where you enjoy the feeling that people aren't laughing. Imagine a child drinking beer for the first time and they can't possibly understand why you like it, and you can't possibly explain why it tastes good. But there's a buzz to failing and not dying." [The L.A. Times]

• Former Congressman and failed Presidential candidate Tom "I See Brown People" Tancredo yesterday said that Judge Sonia Sotomayor was a member of the Latino KKK, otherwise known as the National Council of La Raza, the oldest political advocacy group for the Latino community. Unmitigated racists, meet your leader. [Politico]

• Texas Senator John Cornyn, who understands the importance of Latino votes in winning his own re-election, thinks that all this racist crap is "terrible." [Huffington Post]
• And even über-Catholic activist and anti-abortion advocate Bill Donohue isn't going to get all up in opposing Sotomayor. [BeliefNet]
• In fact, most Republicans want those who are calling Sotomayor a racist and opposing her to shut the fuck up already. [Politico]
• There must be something new in the Kool-Aid at GOP headquarters, because Dick Cheney sort of apologized to Colin Powell [ThinkProgress]
• Plus, George W. Bush has finally weighed in the torture issue, saying that the practice was effective. [Detroit Free Press]
• North Korea just launched another missile. [CNN]
• They've even annoyed China. [Wall Street Journal]

• Yale University awarded Secretary of State Hillary Clinton an honorary Doctorate of Law yesterday, after which she spoke to the Law School graduating class. You know some of the undergraduate seniors were pissed. [Associated Press]

• Clinton will soon extend spousal benefits to all domestic partners (same sex or otherwise) of Foreign Service Officers, making other federal employees jealous. [Washington Post]
• One of her predecessors, Colin Powell, is sick of taking shit from Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. [Reuters]
• Karl Rove, for his part, still thinks Dick Cheney rulez and Colin Powell droolz. [Think Progress]
• Seventy percent of Americans disagree with Rove, but what else is new. [Time]
• Oh, and if you were wondering why, other than an Elektra Complex, Liz Cheney is running around kissing her dad's ass and talking about how good torture is for America's moral authority in the world, it's 'cause she's gonna run for office. [ThinkProgress]
• Kim Jong Il shot off a couple of missiles at that news. Then he launched some nukes. [NY Times]
• The RNC can't decide whether it wants to screw Nancy Pelosi or hurt her, but it certainly doesn't want to debate her policies because its full of a bunch of misogynist frat boys jerking off to old James Bond films. [Politico]

• The Justice Department is asking a judge to dismiss the stupid lawsuit trying to prevent Hillary Clinton from serving as Secretary of State because she served in Congress. Clinton is the only former elected official in the Cabinet facing such a lawsuit. [Huffington Post]

• President Obama has voiced his own animatronic robot in Disney's Hall of Presidents; he also gave Disney his real measurements. People are calling the thing, naturally, "Robobama," even though "Robama" is a clearly superior nickname. [NY Times]
• The lifelike animated corpse of the GOP, otherwise known as "Dick Cheney," gave a dick speech about how waterboarding isn't torture and the country is less safe now that we stopped torturing people we think are terrorists into confession. [Washington Post]
• Obama disagrees, thinks Dick Cheney is a dick and that a Supermax prison can probably manage to keep a terrorist from escaping and getting to Iraq to attack our soldiers. [Huffington Post]
• Bush says he likes cleaning up dog shit better than being President. [MSNBC]
• John Kerry doesn't mind Nancy Pelosi accusing the CIA of misleading her, since they did it to him. [Huffington Post]
• The House isn't going to create a bipartisan panel to give Republicans more time on TV to attack Pelosi investigate whether or not the CIA lied to her. [MSNBC]
• Republican Congressman Paul Broun wants to make 2010 the Year of the Bible because 2010 is an election year and he needs to get re-elected despite doing stupid stuff like spending time trying to make 2010 the Year of the Bible. [Politico]
• The RNC thinks that having slavery enshrined in the Constitution was a-okay. Man, they're all really pissed at Michael Steele! [Media Matters]