Basically, Judd Gregg is an asshole. He took the job as Commerce Secretary not to serve the administration of Barack Obama (or the Americans who elected him), but to serve the Republican party and his own ego. So, after actively seeking the appointment and then deciding he couldn't possibly support the President's priorities, he's dropped his bid to be Obama's Commerce Secretary having discovered that Obama is a Democrat and that he wouldn't be allowed to politicize the Census Bureau to help the Republican party gerrymander in its favor and minimize minorities.

So, then let me take a moment and suggest to the Obama Administration — since its vetters obviously checked out mentally once they got done reading through Hillary Clinton's disclosures or something — that, instead of having Wanda Sykes be the entertainment at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, that they suck it up and do what they should've done when looking for a Treasury Secretary and make Wanda Commerce Secretary. She's African-American, she's a woman, she's a lesbian, she'd be a welcome relief from all the stuffed shirts in Washington and she's really unlikely to have taken campaign donations for government contracts. I mean, come on, it's not like they've got standards!

Standards are something Stewart Parnell, the president of Peanut Corporation of America, also lacks. He's the guy who was so worried about losing profits that he pushed through shipment after shipment of salmonella-contaminated peanut products without a second thought for anything other than his bottom line — like, say, cleaning his fucking equipment or hundreds of sick little kids. So, he was up testifying in Congress, which is to say pleading the 5th because he knows full well what he did was illegal, and he got totally served by Oregon Congressman Greg Walden. Walden offered Parnell a taste from a big jar of peanut butter Walden's staff had helpfully decorated with police tape, and Parnell declined. As my friend Greg said last night: Mr. Walden, you should've eaten the peanut butter while pleading the 5th. Pop some Cipro and stuff your face with the stuff, then hole up at the Four Seasons in Georgetown until your ass explodes. And thus concludes today's lesson in guerrilla government relations.

Anyway, now even though Leon Panetta was confirmed as CIA Director yesterday and Rahm Emanuel admitted he made some mistakes and Obama might finally get on Sheila Bair's suggestion that lenders be subsidized to renegotiate mortgages in order to stem the tide of foreclosures, if our tips line is any indication, y'all would really, really like to discuss the plane crash in Buffalo. The Sri Lankan government could be seeking foreign aid to set up concentration camps for more than 200,000 ethnic Tamil refugees, but 50 relatively privileged Americans died in a plane crash and it'll be headlines for days and days with photos of the fire and the tail being sprayed down and long obituaries to each nameless face that died in this accident that we can all look at and feel momentarily sad about while ignoring politics and world affairs. Ooh, did you see that koala picture? So fucking cute, right?

(Only, you know, with fewer guests, and, since I don't manicure as regularly as Barbra Streisand, with way worse cuticles.)

The thing about politics, like the news in general, is that it's subject to the butterfly effect and, no, I'm not talking about that shitty movie with Ashton Kutcher. Some minor news story one day takes down a politician the next which, of course, brings us to the death of Bill Richardson's cabinet appointment. Not even a month ago, there was a little-noticed story about how a federal grand jury was investigating possible pay-for-play with contracts in New Mexico and just about everyone yawned and figured Richardson and Obama's vetters weren't that stupid and went back to Christmas shopping. Everyone was just focusing on Blago and the smoking-hot Patrick Fitzgerald and how no one could possibly be stupid enough to accept a Blagojevich appointment to the Senate until, of course, Roland Burris, who now considers himself the junior Senator from Illinois, did.

And, let's stop and talk for just a second about Roland Burris, whose zeal for higher office has never once been thwarted by a desire to do what was, you know, right. Just ask Rolando Cruz, who sacrificed more than a decade of his own life at the altar of Burris' political ambitions — let alone two of Burris' own prosecutors who quit rather than do something they knew was wrong. Harry Reid might faux-fight that shit all he wants (which, given that it's Harry Reid, isn't much — the man would rather watch a few boxing matches on the industry's dime than get all pugilistic up in the Senate). Burris knows he played by the rules and bought that seat fair and square just like he bought those contracts from the Blago administration and he's going to take his rightful place by hook, crook, lawsuit or race card, because that's how "vetting" is done in Chicago.

But back to Chicago, which Obama left yesterday with a tear in his eye, leaving his staff claiming that Richardson stonewalled them on the pay-for-play case — which begs the question: why did you then let him have the job, idiots? Even letting loose the info that Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, once thought a potential VP candidate, is only getting the DNC Chairmanship as his consolation prize (note to others: don't talk about Axelrod's combover) isnt' going to stop the Richardson trainwreck, especially as he's withdrawing from the Obama Administration and returning to run his own.

His state, like most of 'em, is probably deep in the hole and they'd like a trillion dollars from the federal government or else they've got these mutated, ill-tempered sea bass with fricking laser beams on their foreheads, see? And the overseer of the financial crisis might want to steer clear of state capitals once he loses that Secret Service Protection in 10 years because sea bass and governors tend to live for a while (everywhere but in Virginia, where Tim Kaine is about to be term-limited out anyway).

But there are some people that will be coming to Washington, including Al Franken, who will supposedly be declared the winner of the Minnesota Senate race today and Denver school superintendent Michael Bennet, who is reportedly Colorado Governor Bill Ritter's choice to replace Ken Salazar in the Senate. New York Governor David Paterson is still denying that Caroline Kennedy is the front-runner to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate despite Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver flip-flopping on Kennedy last week for just that reason, so either her people have plants in the governor's office leaking this or it's all just a big show on Paterson's part to make him look so pressured that he doesn't have another choice. She might be able to make nice with either Harvard law dean Elena Kagan or Stanford law dean Kathleen Sullivan, both of whom are tops on the short list for Solicitor General and either of whom would be the first woman to hold the position.

In the meantime, troopers are alleging that the investigation into Levi Johnston's Oxy-Mom was delayed for political reasons, a bunch of anti-Bush activists are forced to cope with the fact that one of their own was an FBI plant, which makes me wonder after last spring's Elle story of another FBI plant how many anarchists we really have who aren't working for the federal government. There's also another sketchy Bill Clinton donor story out there which should make for 3 minutes of questioning during Hillary Clinton's confirmation hearings next month, assassinated Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto's daughter has a new rap song out which is probably more ripe for parody than Rachel Maddow but SNL's Michaela Watkins of the terrible Arianna impression will try one anyway.

Oh, and not to be trumped by the damn Bidens, the Obamas will be getting their girls two puppies, too, and someone will be having a very stern talk with Joe about upstaging the boss.

• Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie may be buying a $139 million, 240-foot yacht ark. By our calculations, this means Brad's penis is smaller than Rupert Murdoch and Richard Branson's, but bigger than Paul Allen's. [DListed]
• Wentworth Miller may have a girlfriend. Women weep, gay men laugh. [a href="http://justjared.buzznet.com/2007/04/11/amie-brice-wentworth-miller-girlfriend/">JustJared]
• Katie Couric: Total cougar! [PageSix]
• Ryan Phillippe continues his divorced-guy, downward spiral. [PageSix]
• Would someone please bitchslap Naomi Campbell already? [PageSix]

• CNN is set to pay Anderson Cooper $50 million over the course of 5 years. Okay, Anderson, you can come out of the closet now. [PageSix]
• Sean Stewart threw his girlfriend out of his Beverly Hills pad, a gesture she'll appreciate the day she realizes what a douchebag he is. [PageSix]

• If large yacht = small cock, here's an estimate of the penis size of various billionaire businessmen, from biggest to smallest: Richard Branson, Rupert Murdoch, Ronald Perelman, Tom Perkins, Paul Allen. [Rush&Molloy]
• When he was 10 years old, Kurt Russell got cut by a girl with a knife hidden in her beehive hairdo. [PageSix]
• Even Paris Hilton's cheesy ex, Stavros Niarchos, thinks Brandon Davis is a loser. [PageSix]
• He likes bitches! Star Jones' hubby was seen hanging out at a West Village dog-run without a dog. [Gatecrasher, 4th item]

• Avril Lavigne and Dereck Whibley have bought a $9.5 million home in Bel-Air. [People]
• Liz Hurley's father-in-law thinks she's tacky and desperate. That sounds about right! [DailyMail]
• OMG! The "Complete First Season of Silver Spoons" is coming to DVD! On June 19th! Our birthday! [No link!]

• FHM spokesman says Kate Moss isn't on the magazine's "Sexiest 100 Women" list because "the average guy on the street prefers someone that's a little more womanly." Which explains why Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller made the cut. [Page Six]
• Barbara Walters's new beau is a geronologist. Wow: Baba really, really doesn't want to age gracefully, does she? [Rush&Molloy, 4th item]
• Paparazzi supposedly mistook Rose McGowan for Angelina Jolie. Perhaps they were just confused by the "homewrecker" sign taped to Rose's back. [TMZ]
• Speaking of, Rose McGowan really needs to watch her back. Her homewrecking, man-eating, much more beautiful "doppelganger" may be teaming up with Rose's new boyfriend on the Sin City sequel. [Starpulse]
• Even supposed daddy-snorter and legendary drug-addict Keith Richards thinks that Pete Doherty is bad news. [Starpulse]

• It's looking more and more likely that Jessica Alba and Cash Warren have broken up. [PerezHilton]
• An "insider" says that Suri Cruise gets her hair cut once a week while nude and in complete silence. [Gatecrasher, 4th item]
• Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, Britney Spears, social-climbing and coked up sex in bathrooms. [HollywoodRag]

• Rose McGowan shacked up with her Grindhouse director Robert Rodriguez during filming, thereby breaking up his marriage to movie producer Elizabeth Avellan. This might explain why Avellan's daughters arrived up at the film's premiere in a pair of McGowan-outlawed red dresses. [PageSix]
• Girls Gone Wild's Joe Francis gets a karmic beat-down. [Yeeeah]
• Beyonce and Tina Knowles: "Subconsciously racist"! [PageSix]
• Chris Rock may be the father of a child born out of wedlock. [Rush&Molloy, 2nd item]
• Speaking of bastard children: The Spice Girls' Melanie Brown has given birth to her baby. [Ananova]

• Lindsay Lohan, Hollywood's most famous human Hoover. [PerezHilton]
• What is it with skinny, famous women and DJ AM? [PerezHilton]