• Kiefer Sutherland surrendered to police yesterday for headbutting designer Jack McCollough. He was arrested and charged with a third-degree assault charge. He was photographed and fingerprinted. Then he left. [People]

• This report says Kiefer was not arrested, but received a desk ticket. [TMZ]
• This report says Kiefer was arrested but not jailed and should have a court date in the next few weeks. [Reuters]
• Kiefer looks handsome in spectacles! [Gothamist]
• This paper claims Kiefer Sutherland "strolled" into the police station, "as cool in a crisis as his 24 alter ego." [NY Daily News]
• And! This says Kiefer "meekly" surrendered to cops. [NY Post]
• Uh-oh. Anna Wintour is fucking pissed that the biggest story from the Met ball is Kiefer's headbutt. A source says: "Anna is furious that the Met Gala got upstaged by Kiefer doing something stupid at an after-party that wasn't even part of her event. Now that's all anyone is talking about, not her party. And she is so genuinely fond of Jack, she has supported him and Lazaro for years, she really feels they are part of the future of American fashion. So she's doubly annoyed." DOUBLY ANNOYED. This will not end well. [NY Mag]
• Brooke Shields has told friends that she was indeed "jostled" by Jack McCollough at the Met Gala, but it was "no big deal" and had more to do with her 6-inch heels and a dark and crowded room. In any case, maybe Kiefer thought Jack pushed her?!?! [TMZ]
• Lindsay Lohan has been taking her 15-year-old sister to parties and a source says: "Dina took Ali out of school and now all she does is hang out with Lindsay — who is back to drinking and partying hard. Ali is now wearing really skimpy outfits, and it's just sad. No one is in control. Where are children's services? Where is Dina?" Is this "source" Michael Lohan??? [Page Six]
• Rihanna had planned to wear thigh high lace-up Louis Vuitton boots to the Met Gala, but Madonna wanted to wear them and "and insisted that nobody else could be seen or photographed in them." Rihanna was fine with it. [Page Six]
• Amy Winehouse will play the St. Lucia jazz festival tonight, she says, "It also is an honour for me to appear on the same bill as great singers such as Chaka Khan and Patti LaBelle as well great jazz musicians like Monty Alexander and George Duke." And! She loves St. Lucia! "Since I first came to the island, I have been greeted with nothing but kindness and friendship, as well as incredible music and the most beautiful of settings. I have made friends for life and have been inspired by my surroundings. The laid-back lifestyle definitely suits me, it's a home from home with great beaches." Is it too late to catch a flight? [Mirror]
• Paula Abdul has something to say! "I want to make it perfectly clear to everyone that I have never been addicted to or abused drugs in my life," she says. "I have never been drunk." Wait, what?!?!? "I have never entered a rehab or detox treatment center. I spent time hiking, bicycling, doing yoga and enjoying the spa. As anyone who has visited the La Costa Resort knows, it is a luxury hotel, not a rehab facility." Oh. Hmm. But did you tell Ladies Home Journal you went there to kick your pill habit?!?! [E!]
• Megan Fox has something to say! "If you know how to take control of [being a sex symbol], then it can be powerful. But I have no idea how to handle it yet, how to deal with it. I don't want to have to be like a Scarlett Johansson — who I have nothing against — but I don't want to have to go on talk shows and pull out every single SAT word I've every learned to prove, like, 'Take me seriously, I am intelligent, I can speak.' I don't want to have to do that. I resent having to prove that I'm not a retard – but I do. And part of it is my own fault." [People]
• Jon Favreau used his Twitter account to describe Scarlett Johansson's first day in her Black Widow outfit on the set of Iron Man 2: "Scarlett's first day on set in the Black Widow outfit… You've never heard a crew get so quiet so fast." [Mirror]
• Five months after Jennifer Hudson's dude David Otunga proposed to her; she proposed right back with a "architectural and geometric" platinum and diamond men's ring. [People]
• Jennifer Aniston is acting in The Baster — the comedy about a woman whose best friend (Jason Bateman) secretly fathers her child when he swaps her intended artificial insemination sample with his own — and she is also the executive producer. She says of doing double duty: "I'm just exhausted." [USA Today]
• A judge is placing Roman Polanski's case on hold — not throwing it out; the judge said that because "Mr. Polanski doesn't intend to submit himself to the jurisdiction of the court," his motion for dismissal would be denied. [AP]
• Sparkly vampire and same-sex scene god Robert Pattinson has hit No. 1 on USA Today's high scientific Celebrity Heat Index, which measures media exposure. Some schmuck named Brad Pitt is No. 2. [USA Today]
• Sarah Jessica Parker has joined the board of the New York City Ballet and will host the Spring Gala next week, where Samantha Ronson will DJ. [Page Six]
• Again with this story: Sarah Jessica Parker's surrogate is a "bisexual tattooed rocker." And? [The Star]
• The pastor of Miss California Carrie Prejean would like all you haters to leave her alone. "We are all sinners. Christians aren't perfect," he says. "The pictures are from when she was 17, and they do not disqualify her from being able to share her opinion." [E!]
• "Smitten" Joe Jonas is desperately seeking a "lovenest" for he and girlfriend Camilla Belle to sneak off to, since his brothers always seem to be around. He may wear a purity ring but it certainly sounds like he's thinking some perfectly natural and wonderfully impure thoughts. GET IT. [Contact Music]
• Gwyneth Paltrow is "mulling" over whether to return to the London stage in a production of Chekhov's The Three Sisters. [Daily Mail]
• Meryl Streep on 30 Rock? "I would love to do that yes," she says. "It's an amazing show." Tina Fey: Make it happen. [Mirror]
• Time does "10 Questions With JJ Abrams." I like this one: Q: What is your favorite plot twist of all time? A: The one that comes to mind is the end of Planet of the Apes, when you realize, "Oh my God, he's never getting home because that is home." I just remember seeing that as a kid and I was like, "That's it. My brain just stopped." [Time]
• Lady GaGa's breast popped out during a video shoot. A source says she laughed and said: "You better make sure you airbrush my nipples!" [Gatecrasher]
• Ouch: Sacha Baron Cohen bleached all of his body hair to play Bruno, but "shortly after having the procedure done he felt a burning sensation and it grew steadily worse. It was so severe around a certain part of his anatomy that he couldn't sit down for three days." [Telegraph]
• "Paris [Hilton]: I don't keep a diary..I Google myself." [The Sun]
• A new biography claims Patrick Swayze didn't realize he was sick until it was nearly too late. [Gatecrasher]
• Samantha Morton spent the first 16 years of her life either in care or living in foster homes; now she has a film which will air on TV in the UK — called The Unloved — about a girl who grows up in the system. [Daily Mail]
• Keanu Reeves will star in the Universal Pictures retelling of the classic tale The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which will be titled Jekyll. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Ooh, Marisa Tomei and Liv Tyler will star in a psychological thriller called 10A/10B, about the relationship and consequences that result when a culinary perfectionist, portrayed by Tyler, and an actress with a failing career, played by Tomei, become neighbors in a loft apartment building. [Variety]
• "Farrah Fawcett's Friends Prepare To Say Goodbye." Ryan O'Neal says she "stays in bed now" and her treatment has "pretty much ended." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Leonard Nimoy is in the new Star Trek, and now JJ Abrams has also made him a guest-star on Fringe. [USA Today]
• A promoter from Suriname admits that he scammed people into thinking they were paying $53 to see Toni Braxton, when in fact they were watching Braxton impersonator Trina Johnson-Finn sing. [USA Today]
• Lenny Kravitz will tour the UK in July and take a guitar which belonged to Jimi Hendrix with him. [Daily Express]
• Ozzy Osbourne hearts Phil Collins. [Daily Express]
• Blind item! "Which top model's hubby is hoping some sexy literature will spice up their love life? He recently gave her a graphic tome and asked what she'd be into most." [Gatecrasher]
• "She wanted marriage, she wanted children; and not that I didn't want that, but I didn't want that at that time because I had just gotten out of a marriage, I'd just had kids… Yet we're up against her biological clock — that pressure is what cracked it. Because if somebody wants a child — man, that's the greatest gift you can give to a woman — so who are you to stand there and say I don't want one. So we were at different points in our lives. We were not compatible on that issue." — Lance Armstrong, on why he broke up with Sheryl Crow. [Page Six]
• "I couldn't even pick up a girl until I had a hit song. When that happened, in a club in Argentina, I rang my five best friends and said: 'Get down here, we are all going to get laid.' It was crazy what a hit could do. But I do hide behind my clothes a bit. I am the opposite of a playboy." — Enrique Iglesias. [Daily Mail]
• "There were some locations, that by all rights we were supposed to have access to — in front of certain churches, for instance. But two or three days beforehand we were requested not to shoot there by local officials. I think that church officials gave the word to the local government that they didn't want us filming in certain places." — Ron Howard on shooting Angels & Demons. [WSJ]
• "'My weakness - if you can call it that - was drugs. I took all sorts from a fairly young age, ecstasy and LSD among them. It almost led me to a very long period in jail. I was high on drugs, on one occasion, and threatened to kill one of the older girls I was living with, who had been picking on me." — Samantha Morton. [Daily Mail]
• "It used to be Diane Keaton – she always used to tell me, 'I'm terrible, I'm awful, I can't do it, you should get someone else.' And she was always brilliant. Well, Larry is like this. I'd always been a fan. I asked him to do it, and he said, 'But I can't act! I can only do what I do, I'm not an actor, you'll be disappointed. Those are the ones who can always do it. The ones that tell you how great they are can never do it. When it came time, he did it. And not just the comedy, which I expected, but all the other things which required acting, emotions and being touching." — Woody Allen, on Larry David, who stars in Allen's film, Whatever Works. [Independent]
• "The Hanso Foundation that started the Dharma Initiative hired this guy Valenzetti to basically work on this equation to determine what was the probability of the world ending in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Valenzetti basically deduced that it was 100 percent within the next 27 years, so the Hanso Foundation started the Dharma Initiative in an effort to try to change the variables in the equation so that mankind wouldn't wipe it itself out." — Lost's Damon Lindelof, on what the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 actually mean. [NY Mag]
• "It's real love. And we will be married forever and ever and ever. I legally changed my name to Pratt. I'm very excited. I thought about my dress for years. I knew everything I wanted. I knew I wanted a strapless, gorgeous, big, flowy, princess, fun, amazing dress, and that's what I had. I wanted it to be really classic but young and fun and fresh. I felt like a princess, and it was perfect. I was just sitting there in my dress, like, 'I am really about to marry the most amazing man, and this is such a great experience.'" — Heidi Montag. [Mirror]
• "It's so mainstream now. When you look at people who are transmitting the news to you on television they all look like they're in porn, the way they're quaffed. It's really crazy. There's this like hyper-grooming thing going on now, men and women. I was never thinking, oh, what an outré thing to do to put a porn actor in a quote-unquote normal movie. I just thought she was interesting." — Steven Soderbergh, on his new flick, The Girlfriend Experience. [WSJ]
• "Well, if I had to be addicted to something, it would be sex!" — Hayden Panettiere. [Page Six]

ANA MARIE: I think i caught whatever you have! Darn internets.

MEGAN: Man, this newfangled technology will transmit viruses so quick... I'll stop with the techie jokes.

ANA MARIE: And I even have a Mac! So. Is inauguration over yet?

MEGAN: No, you'd have to sleep longer for that. But official Washington has heard our pleas, and ordered up 5,000 porta-potties for the inauguration.

ANA MARIE: Well, I guess that's good about the porta-potties. Though I cringe to think about the situation nonetheless. It's an awesome, inspiring, history making occasion, and yet I suspect we'll have some very ugly scenes. Ugly, smelly, disease-carrying scenes.

MEGAN: I think it's fair to say that, at the very least, some people will be peeing in bottles. But if you want to talk about ugly, disease-carrying scenes, let's talk Nobel corruption scandal.

ANA MARIE: Over HPV no less. Yowza. That's just really depressing. Not keeping-a-childrens-hospital-from-getting-money depressing, but right up there.

MEGAN: There's also all-expenses paid trips to China to "explain how the process works," which I'm pretty sure is the international phrase for "collect more bribes."

ANA MARIE: Also, a kind of poetic synecdoche: The trip to explain how it works was itself an example of how it works.

MEGAN: Scary how the Chinese already understood.

ANA MARIE: And yet it's not like they care about the HPV vaccine. Or, you know, girls.

MEGAN: Well, sure, I mean, men can't get cervical cancer.

ANA MARIE: So I'm actually starting to feel some sympathy for the Caroline Kennedy back-backlash. I still can't really get behind her but the piling on is kind of ugly.

MEGAN: I've lost track of what I'm supposed to think of her candidacy today, actually.

ANA MARIE: I just spent all day listening to to cable folks mock her for not talking to the press which just reminded me of how IMPORTANT THE PRESS THINKS THEY ARE.

MEGAN: Also, apparently she failed to vote in some mayoral primaries in the nineties, so I'm guessing New Yorkers think they're almost as important as the press.

ANA MARIE: Or, rather, NYC mayoral primary candidates do. The whole thing reminds me more of Hillary than anything Camelot-y. And it really doesn't remind me of Palin... should it? I'm sort of serious.

MEGAN: Kathleen Parker says no, since a Senator can be good by just raising money and getting attention and Palin was running for the opportunity to be President if John McCain kicked the bucket.

ANA MARIE: I suppose that's a useful distinction.

MEGAN: A less useful distinction: the line of crap the Bush Administration is using to explain its unwillingness to sign a UN declaration calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality. States rights!

According to some of the declaration's backers, U.S. officials expressed concern in private talks that some parts of the declaration might be problematic in committing the federal government on matters that fall under state jurisdiction. In numerous states, landlords and private employers are allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation; on the federal level, gays are not allowed to serve openly in the military.

Man, when was the last time we claimed states rights didn't allow us to combat discrimination...?

ANA MARIE: Way to go out in style. I have a friend on the WH beat who tells me that the Bushies really believe "they've left the world in a better state than they found it." To which I can only reply: I guess that depends on the STATE OF YOUR MIND.

MEGAN: Between that and making sure no one has to give us heathens our birth control, I'm sure they do think it's better. I mean, Saddam Hussein is dead, the Saudis and Egyptians can keep executing their gays as God intended, and maybe us libidinous sluts won't tempt men as much if we can't get constant abortions.

ANA MARIE: I was about to object to being included in the "us libidinous sluts" team but then I remembered this quote from Rick Warren JUST THIS MORNING:

CURRY: If science finds that this is biological, that people are born gay, would you change your position?

WARREN: No, and the reason why is because we all have biological predispositions. I'm naturally inclined to have sex with every beautiful woman I see. But that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

MEGAN: Eww. Rick Warren, STOP THINKING ABOUT MY HOOHA!!

ANA MARIE: WE ARE ALL LIBIDINOUS SLUTS, I guess. EVEN RICK WARREN. What bizarre logic. I can't quite get my head around it, because, you know, actually, I don't think that's how human (hetero) sexuality works!

MEGAN: What, you don't walk around with the female equivalent of semi-chub looking at attractive men all the time?You aren't not continuously having sex with strangers by sheer force of will?

ANA MARIE: I guess he obviously thinks that gays have are "biologically predispositioned" to have sex with every hot same-sex thing they see, or that's just what he tells himself while he's furiously masturbating in his car over the pleasant looking woman that just bagged his groceries. How awful it must be to be Rick Warren!

MEGAN: I mean, if he masturbates that much it can't be that bad.

ANA MARIE: Well, I had sort of been inclined to like the guy, actually, given the other evangelical options, but this is such a crazy interpretation of what it means to be gay — or to be sexual, period — that I'm now kinda scared!

MEGAN: I'm just going to put this out there, despite it being the obvious end point, because it's a rainy Friday and I'm all about the cheap jokes on rainy Fridays. Maybe that's Rick Warren's interpretation of what it means to be gay and sexual because it's Rick Warren's experience with what it means to be gay and sexual.

ANA MARIE: Yikes. Except of course, he is gay for beautiful women.

MEGAN: Bisexuality is an option, yes.

ANA MARIE: I can't wait to her what Andrew Sullivan has to say about this. (And when is the last time anyone wrote that sentence!)

MEGAN: Definitely before he got obsessed with what Sarah Palin did/did not last have in her uterus. I think we need a chaser, and I nominate the 4-year-old New York girl who got tickets to the inauguration, because I'm hoping there will be pictures of the cute.

ANA MARIE: OMG PONIES! Yes, I am hoping too. Love how her dad was all, "She's taking me." Just keep her away from the porta potties, dad. You'll be fine.

MEGAN: Awww there is a picture, of her kissing Chuck Schumer.

ANA MARIE: That's the closest Schumer has gotten to cute since he got between Sasha and Malia and a microphone. Also? The little girl's name is "Lou." She totally needs to have a cameo in the Jon Favreau dramedy we're pitching to AMC after crappy closes (:))

MEGAN: Yes, they have to meet cute at the Inauguration. And she's lost and in the midst of the most important day of his life, he helps her find her daddy. Or is that too Sorkin-esque? It felt very Josh Lyman.

ANA MARIE: She's there with her age-appropriate but hot cousin and JF has to intervene when Rick Warren can't resist his biological urges!

MEGAN: Rick Warren, teeth bared, bounds off the platform and races like an animal on all fours straight for the cousin! (Wait, now I've seen the Wolverine trailer too many times)

ANA MARIE: "Lou" witnesses the horrible scene and Favreau takes the whole family to meet with Obama who delivers a heartfelt apology for underestimating Warren's self control. "Next time, I'll pick a gay guy," says Obama, "they don't think with their..." And Favreau does a "zip it, boss!" move, leading the adults to laugh at the avoided truth... until little Lou goes, "think with their biological urges?" And everyone laughs. And scene. Next episode: JF and hot cousin on a date!

MEGAN: With pratfalls, of course! Everyone loves a pratfall! Not as much as a crotch injury, but those are less prime-time friendly.

MEGAN: Okay, so, the coffee is brewing as is the progressive resentment over Rick Warren's scheduled prayer at the inauguration, so I guess we're all set to go.

ANA MARIE: I'm going to be annoying and say what I did last night upon hearing the Warren news: Anyone who is surprised by this was not watching the same primary I was. This is not to say they shouldn't be upset. I am very much pro-outrage. Sort of in general.

MEGAN: Or they missed the Election Night speech when he said he was also the President of the people that didn't vote for him. Sort of like the opposite thing Bush has done for 8 years? You don't see Bush inviting the Reverend Joe Lowery onstage, do you?

ANA MARIE: Good point. And depending on how things go forward this could be brilliant. Rather than a sign of mainstreaming bigotry, maybe this is the first step toward Obama co-opting Warren?

MEGAN: Like this?

[Reverend] Chellew-Hodge noted that Warren recently said same-sex couples deserve equal rights, though not the right to marriage, a position at least superficially similar to Obama's). Mainly, however, the argument is that the Warren choice falls under the president-elect's stated objective of building a big tent government.

Yes, how terrible. A government of all the people, by all the people and for all the people. Someone said it wouldn't vanish from this earth.

ANA MARIE: People are doing all kinds of things to suck up to Obama, changing your mind about gay rights is totally acceptable in that regard.

MEGAN: I'm cool with any evangelical who wants to try to regain a modicum of power in an Obama administration by backing anti-poverty spending, gay rights and all the stuff they're happily helped Bush push in the last 8 years. Their hypocrisy is marginally more palatable to me if it's promoting a political agenda I support, since it's not like they can stop being hypocrites.

ANA MARIE: Few of us have that luxury.

MEGAN: For today's unicorn chaser, may I recommend children's letters to Obama?

"I hope that you will stop war because we need peace and quiet," wrote McKenna Tucker, one of several letters from Jefferson students that call on the president-elect to end military conflict.

ANA MARIE: So funny it's Wauwatosa. In part because it's so fun to say, in part because that's where Nancy Dickerson was from — first lady national political television reporter. Okay, but THIS is weird: "The letter-writing project is part of a national campaign organized by Handwriting Without Tears as a way to encourage penmanship in a digital society."

Handwriting Without Tears????? Is that a big problem these days? The tears, I mean? I sort of wish there was a slightly less esoteric organization behind this fantastic project. It's like The National Doily Society getting kids to knit.

MEGAN: I don't know, one of the lowest grades I ever got in grade school — even lower than in gym class — was in penmanship. To this day, I am occasionally mocked for my handwriting. Nick Gillespie did it once at a Reason Christmas party. So, I'm not going to say there were never bitter tears when I was little.

ANA MARIE: Hm, maybe the problem with your handwriting is that you weren't crying ENOUGH. CRYING OVER MAKING YOUR HANDWRITING PERFECT. That was kind of my approach.

MEGAN: Yes, that's true. I didn't care enough about my cursive until it was too late. But, any of my tears were probably not as bitter as the tears cried by the sick kids and their parents who won't get their $8 million because of Blago.

ANA MARIE: Now there's a thought that will require a whole new unicorn chaser. Ugh. Just when you thought he couldn't get more vulgar.

MEGAN: Yeah, you can swear like a motherfucker, but when you stop legislation designed to allow poor kids better access to specialists for seizures and diabetes, you can offend me faster than calling me a cunt. He's not getting impeached any time soon, in case you were feeling optimistic.

ANA MARIE: Did you see his lawyer's press conference yesterday? IT WAS AWESOME. He was all, "I took this case because it would be FUN." FUN! I don't know if I want my lawyer to take a case ON A LARK.

MEGAN: I was watching part of the hearing and I was like, yeah, this is how this lawyer won the R. Kelly case, by simply rhetorically confusing the shit out of everyone. It's a good tactic, if you can pull it off.

ANA MARIE: Look at how many "[chuckles]" are in that transcript! I think we know someone's prison nickname!

MEGAN: Almost as many as whatever short-sighted tourist wears this to an Inaugural Ball.

ANA MARIE: Hey, it's the People's Inauguration. The people have never been particularly stylish. That will look great with a jokey "WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM" t-shirt and Crocs.

MEGAN: At least you won't see the T-shirt, as it will be covered by a huge coat in deference to the balls-out cold it will be on Inauguration Day.

ANA MARIE: Remember how it was 70 degrees day before yesterday?

MEGAN: Yes, that was lovely.

ANA MARIE: Because you'll want remember what feeling ones toes is like. On the bright side: Frozen human waste easier to deal with/avoid on the street.

MEGAN: I am hoping, like any sane person, to be watching it from the safety of a place with free booze and a heater. Also, there's a horrible rumor circulating that since they're opening up the mall, trains will terminate at Rosslyn and, having been a Georgetown student, I know better than to walk across the Key Bridge when it is cold and windy.

ANA MARIE: ::SHUDDER:: Makes you want to just cuddle up with Jon Favreau, no?

MEGAN: Um, yes. But we already knew that.

ANA MARIE: There is pretty much nothing about that WP story that I wouldn't put into a television pilot about a group of idealistic, funny and hot young people moving to DC to work for the president. 1. He lived in a group house where they played X Box, in addition to writing speeches. 2. He pretend felt-up pretend Hillary. 3. He had a crisis of confidence and had to call a childhood friend 4. His shit is still in boxes while he hangs at S'bucks writing the inauguration speech. I think that you've got you're first 5 episode arc right there.

MEGAN: Also the air mattress. That's a funny bit when he's trying to pick up a girl he likes but can't bring her home because he's embarrassed but she likes him anyway or something. This might be why I don't like sitcoms.

ANA MARIE: My vision is more of a dramedy. And he would bring her home to the air mattress and maybe she doesn't even NOTICE until the morning. Because of the hottness, most likely.

MEGAN: You really can't fuck on an air mattress. If you haven't slept on one in a while, good for you, but, technological improvements aside, the worry about popping it combined with the noise... she'd have to notice. But they'd definitely wake up sleeping on the hard floor on a thick plastic tarp.

ANA MARIE: That would be the scenario for the tv show, I think. We should whip up a treatment and sell this baby!

MEGAN: God knows we need the money!

ANA MARIE: Probably the only way to make money writing about the Obama administration.

MEGAN: It'll take a good two years to get publishers ready for a smear, and the campaign was already a hagiography so no one wants to read that in book format. And here people thought Obama was so egotistical to write his own memoirs before he was anything too important, but he was just presciently undercutting the competition.

ANA MARIE: And while those two hit books on him SORT OF count as fiction, I think there's a lot of room for growth in that area.

My response was more immediate and tended, as always, to the inappropriate humor. While I, obviously, saw what people were going to get worked up about — he's groping her breast! — I figured that there are way more inappropriate pictures of me in the world doing things like groping statuary genitals, carrying around a stuffed beaver and sticking my tongue out (my photographic response being a case in point) to really complain. To me, it was just someone else's drunken, immature humor — and, cardboard boob or no cardboard boob, it was way, way less creepy than the picture of Will Bower frenching a statue of Princess Di.

Dee Dee Myers, naturally, disagrees (well, maybe not about the creepiness of Will Bower). She's not just mad at Favreau for being too stupid to take his appointment seriously — although there's no indication of when the photograph was actually taken — she's peeved about his hand.

What’s bugging me is his intention. He isn’t putting his hand on her “chest,” as most of the articles and conversations about the picture have euphemistically referred to it. Rather, his hand—cupped just so—is clearly intended to signal that he’s groping her breast. And why? Surely, not to signal he finds her attractive. Au contraire. It’s an act of deliberate humiliation. Of disempowerment. Of denigration.

And it disgusts me.

Well, I can't deny the cupping bit — my own Photoshopping job shows the truth of that, if not my ex-boyfriend's statement that "Women can say whatever they want, but every guy knows what he's doing." Nor am I going to argue that it isn't a statement on Clinton's gender, since it obviously is. But that it's akin to actually groping Clinton? To violating and disempowering her? That it's remotely akin to rape? That there's no way that he finds Clinton sexually attractive? I mean, look, no one knows what goes on in the minds of men — particularly young political types in D.C. — and you kind of can't really know that, strange as it may seem. Let alone, as someone who gets her boobs grabbed occasionally, someone groping me — even in jest, which, yes, has happened, has been done by male and female friends of mine and can be funny in context (but you'd better know me damn well) — is not inherently disempowering or denigrating. It's a stupid picture taken (obviously) drunkenly and in an ill-considered moment but it's not this horrible thing either.

The women at Broadsheet are equally divided. Kate Harding and Tracy Clark-Flory admit to having done similar things themselves, but think the context of an Obama staffer doing it to a Clinton cut-out is what smarts and is inappropriate, though that's what makes it remotely funny. Amy Benford and Jeanne Carstensen think it's stupid but aren't outraged, given what else is going on. But Katharine Mieszkowski is in the Dee Dee Myers camp on this one.

Try to imagine a photo of a top female speechwriter for the female president-elect grabbing the crotch of a cardboard cutout of the male politician whom her boss had vanquished in the primary. The cable news talking heads would be fulminating about castration for a week! It's pretty much impossible to imagine that photo being so easily dismissed as a dumb prank.

Actually, for the record, if Hillary Clinton's top female speechwriter had grabbed the cardboard nuts of Barack Obama, I might have honestly had to vote for Clinton. The difference, naturally, it that it wouldn't be seen as a symbolic gesture aimed at saying he was sexy, even subversively, even in humor. It would have been symbolic if "having him by the nuts," which has a completely different meaning than the boob grab.

But if you want to know what would have been actually offensive and breathtakingly sexist — and more in line with the worst of the things that people have said about Hillary Clinton — just picture this same image, with Favreau cupping Clinton's "testicles" (not that he would ever do that) By that standard, we kind of have come a long way since the primary season.

So let Jon Favreau wank to Hillary Clinton's breasts in peace. If you haven't noticed, they're kind of nice.

Favreau's Sexist Photo Is No Laughing Matter [Vanity Fair]
Hideous Sexism Or Harmless Party Pranks [Broadsheet]

Earlier: Obama Speechwriter Jon Favreau Has Grabbier Hands Than Bill Richardson
P.U.M.A's Will Bower Loves Powerful Blondes From Both Sides Of The Pond

• Hottie Obama speechwriter Jon "No Relation" Favreau is embarrassed tonight, after this picture of him cupping a cardboard Hillary Clinton's boob was posted on Facebook. Clinton spokesman Phillippe Reines stole our hearts, though, when he responded, "Senator Clinton is pleased to learn of Jon's obvious interest in the State Department, and is currently reviewing his application." [Washington Post]
• But is the picture faked? We've got some evidence after the jump.
• Meanwhile, Caroline Kennedy has apparently actually talked to New York Governor David Paterson about taking Hillary Clinton's Senate Seat after she resigns. Kennedy is, reportedly, definitely interested. [Huffington Post, MSNBC]
• Mitt Romney's wife, Ann, has a lumpectomy today for a Ductal Carcinoma In Sutu. It has not spread and she's already home with her family. Best wishes, Ann! [Politico]

• Joe Biden hired left-wing progressive economist Jared Bernstein of the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute as he chief economics adviser. He's the new Don Quixote of the Administration. [Washington Independent]
• U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, who's been appointed all over the Bush Administration over the last 8 years, is refusing to do the traditional thing and resign her position in the Western District of Pennsylvania. Apparently, she wants to be able to file for unemployment along with the rest of us, so she's just got to be fired. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
• The Bush Justice Department reluctantly informed the Bush Defense Department that, despite the fact that the EPA is the least respected agency in the Administration, the Defense Department can't simply flip them the bird and refuse to clean up contaminated sites. The Defense Department then gave the Justice Department a wedgie. [Washington Post]
• Jimmy Carter says that we've almost eradicated Guinea worm disease from the earth, since cases are at all all-time low. Almost 80 percent of the 4,410 cases reported this year were in the Sudan, though. Do not Google image search "Guinea worm disease" unless you have a very strong stomach. [MSNBC]
• And, now to the photographic evidence that the Favreau-Clinton shot was completely faked. I, of all people, ought to know. It was me in the original.

• Armed gunman in India today attacked 7 different sites in Mumbai in a reported attempt to kill as many Americans and Brits as possible, not that they spared any Indians while they were killing. At least 78 people lost their lives. [Huffington Post]
• In addition, the FBI has information that al Qaeda may have discussed attacking subways and trains in and around New York City this holiday weekend. People in New York should expect an increased security presence. [Huffington Post]
• On the eve of a holiday dedicated to stuffing one's face with rich food, it is important to note that the number of Americans on food stamps is expected to reach an all time high this month. It's something to chew on with your turkey, and then give thanks that you're either not one of those Americans, or, if you are, that the anti-government Republicans didn't manage to dismantle at least that part of our important but much-maligned "welfare" state. [Washington Post]

• Al Franken today lost a fight to have 12,000 rejected absentee ballots counted during the recount in the Minnesota Senate race. [CNN]
• Noted John McCain fan Ayman al-Zawahiri is now complaining about the media's pro-Obama bias, while Republicans everywhere are sliently praying that he'll shut the fuck up again so they can go back to saying that. [Huffington Post]
• Hot Obama speechwriter Jon "Not that Jon Favreau" Favreau will keep his job writing speeches for Obama and his side gig in being hot. [NY Times]
• Obama has additionally launched a new website for Americans to discuss aspects of health care reform. Yes, you can. [Huffington Post, Change.gov]
• There is a woman in Ohio who keeps a blog devoted to Brian Williams' ties, which wouldn't totally be news because there's a blog for everything, only Brian Williams admits to peeking at it. He has not, however, changed his sartorial choices in the face of it. [Associated Press]
• MTV is throwing its own (televised) inaugural gala on Inauguration Night, which will be attended by "celebrities" and "government officials." This is not to be confused with any of the gazillion official Inaugural Balls that Barack and Michelle Obama will actually be attending. [Associated Press]
• Malia (10) and Sasha (7) Obama still send Christmas lists to Santa, so Barack Obama had to be careful not to spill the beans about who buys their gifts. Memo to Obama: Malia might know, but just not be willing to admit it. It's the curse of being the older daughter. [Associated Press]