• Barack Obama reportedly interviewed Judge Diane Wood for that open Supreme Court seat, though she played coy with reporters and Republicans are ginning up some sort of outrage (because that's what they do!). [Washington Post]

• Another judge played Solomon yesterday and said that we are allowed to hold detainees indefinitely if they're members of al Qaeda, but we have to really, really think they were involved in it and not in a "Iraq has WMDs" kind of way. [NY Times]
• Hillary Clinton got to play the rule of Captain Obvious and state that Iran having big nukes is a bad thing. [CBS News]
• Wait, what? Congressman Steve LaTourette called Rahm Emanuel a "motherfucker" and Rahm hasn't yet had him killed. [Washington Post]
• Rush Limbaugh "resigned" as head of the Republican Party, because he can't actually make any money at it. [ThinkProgress]
• A friend of Texas Governor Rick Perry likened "allowing" moderates in the GOP to making the party a whorehouse. [MSNBC]
• Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty isn't going to certify Al Franken right away if he can see any way around it because Mitch McConnell scares him. [Huffington Post]
• Later today, Obama is going to give a speech claiming that not being a bunch of imperialist assholes makes America safer, and Dick Cheney's going to give one about why being a bunch of imperialist assholes makes his cock hard. [Time]

• The Bushes spent about $3.7 million dollars on real estate in a pricey Dallas neighborhood, and boy, are you going to seethe with jealousy when you see the house the Presidency can buy you. [Washington Post, The Smoking Gun]
• Italy is struggling with a rise in puppy smuggling due to a love of specific breeds and a declining economy. More than 70,000 puppies are smuggled into Italy every year, despite the fact that nearly a quarter of them die on the way and half die within a few months of arrival. There's a video. [BBC]
• Pastor Rick Warren says the Bible calls us to invade Iran. I don't think it says what he thinks it says, but that might be because I read it for my own edification and not to use it to make zillions of dollars or justify my existence. [Washington Independent]

• The recently-published jury instructions in the Lori Drew case make it more clear why she didn't get convicted of any felony counts. [Wired]
• Fred Thompson recently promised that he was getting out of politics and going back to acting. He lied to you. [Time]
• Conservative scribe and Earl of Minor Despair Bob Novak would totally out Valerie Plame again because the media was mean to him after his did so the first time. [Think Progress]
• Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee doesn't think enough LGBT people have been beaten or killed while seeking equality in this country to qualify as a civil rights movement. Also, he thinks if they would just quit choosing to have teh buttsecks, they could have all the rights they ever wanted. [Think Progress]
• Some wacky Republicans who probably spend a portion of their time bitching about tort reform and vexatious litigation are filing lawsuits upon lawsuits about Barack Obama's birth certificate because blah blah blah crazytown nonsense. [Honolulu Advertiser]
• Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, she of the horror of women who don't always wear stockings, is going to challenge Texas Governor Rick Perry in the 2010 gubernatorial primary because she doesn't think he's Republican-y enough. [Dallas Morning News]
• Sarah Palin is totally snubbing Oprah, because Real Americans would definitely go talk to Larry King first. [Huffington Post]
• Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, with an assist from Governor General Michaëlle Jean, has shut down the Canadian Parliament to keep from being thrown out of office. And here you were all worried that George W. Bush was going to be the one to try to upend the democracy he supposedly serves. [NY Times]

MEGAN: Be thankful you don't still live here- it's still sleeting this morning.
MOE: it's sooooooo gross outside
MEGAN: It is here too! I was planning on leaving the house today initially, but I don't think I care to anymore.
MOE: So .... did you vote yesterday?
or no, right? bc you're unaffiliated?
I wonder who my GRANDMA voted for... Obama won our elderly. She can't really see how cute the Obama family is on account of macular degeneration, but if she could she'd think they were very Kennedy-esque.
MEGAN: Well, I know my grandpa didn't vote for Obama in NY, and my dad couldn't. I can't see my mom going for Clinton, but I'll bet my gramma did.
And, no, I didn't vote yesterday.
MOE: My brother and mom both went for Obama, I haven't heard from my dad yet but knowing him he wrote in "Alan Keyes"... and if my sister actually got her ass to the polls in contrast to 2004 she definitely voted for Obama. So yeah, he won my family by huge margins. But here is what kind of fucks with my head a little: exactly why is it that Hillary did so poorly in Virginia, and that was, you know, "expected." I see the Clintons being slightly unpopular inside the Beltway by people who want an end to dynastic rule or whatever, but I'm pretty sure she managed to win DC whites, because she won 24% of the vote there and the population is only like 20% white, right? So that sort of insider ennui is a figment of my imagination/wishful thinking I guess. So I ask again, why did she lose so bad? Why was turnout so fucking huge? This is the state in which I grew up. It is a red state. What's going on?
Oh my god I just went to Drudge go quick and look at the picture in the right column...
MEGAN: Wait, the puppy? Or do you mean the Clinton/Thatcher mash-up? And who the hell has such a hard-on for Margaret Thatcher that he remembers her outfits?
Oh, wait, Drudge. Right.
MOE: THE PUPPY
IT IS WINKING
IT IS WINKING AT THE AUDIENCE
MEGAN: That motherfucking dog is so damn cute. They've been running video of his win on CNN all morning.
MOE: I just turned on CNN.
I've been overdosing on it lately.
So it seems like the Clinton spin is that Obama's huge margins came from a Potomac region swept away by the momentum because, you know, they've actually been paying attention.
MEGAN: Anyway, on Obama, CNN exit polls, 22 percent of people voting in Virginia's Dem primary identified at independent and they went 2/3s for Obama. But, they're not trusting their own polling numbers on Republicans, which say that 3 percent of Democratic primary voters identified as Republicans and they all went for Obama.
MOE: Well that was my little brother's theory — and it explains why Huckabee did pretty well.
MEGAN: I thought it was kind of crappy last night, actually, that she couldn't find 2 seconds in her 30 minute speech in El Paso to congratulate Obama, especially when Obama got to Wisconsin and made his crowd cheer for McCain's hero-ness.
I think Huckabee did really well in the places in Virginia the rest of us are scared to go.
And, unofficial results would seem to prove my completely bigoted view correct.
MOE: Ooooh, and speaking of bigoted views, Ed Rendell just took credit for garnering Pennsylvania's racist vote in his gubernatorial campaign. I just bolded that for some variety.
Did you just watch that skateboarding video on CNN?
It was disturbing.
MEGAN: I did, they have been replaying that shit every 15 minutes all morning. I felt like I was back home listening to it.
But, where I grew up, nothing would've happened to the cop.
MOE: He was such a dick.
I mean, on a level that was totally preposterous and that they totally loved. But at least now we know why Ron Paul is so beloved by the high school boy contingent.
MEGAN: I smell bacon!
MOE: Until they knock up their girlfriends that is.
MEGAN: That does tend to change the conservative male psyche, and not in the "I'm always going to use condoms forever and ever amen" kind of way.
MOE: Here's something funny: Huckabee won 17% of DC's Republicans. I would really like to know who those 17% were...
MEGAN: I don't think those people would be safe if other people knew who they were. On the other hand, I heard total turnout for the Republican primary in DC was 4,000, so that's only like 700 people. Is there a megachurch in DC? Do that many McLean Bible Church attendees live in the District?
MOE: SEVEN HUNDRED WHOLE HUCKABEE VOTERS?
One of the VA commenters blamed the Latins actually. She was at her polling place and overheard some women talking about how they were voting for "el christiano."
MEGAN: Shout out to JD Regent! I saw that! It made me wonder... who do they think the other candidates worship? Other than power and their own egos, of course.
MOE: SRSLY. That said I discovered the other day that Huckabee's Fair Tax is actually advocated by an economic adviser to Mike Gravel and some Naderites are trying to get the left to embrace it. I would say DC probably has more aggressively counterintuitive Naderite IRS abolisher types than it does typical Bible gut Jesus freak types.
MEGAN: Oh, Jesus, I have commented on the Flat/Fair Tax people before but let me do so again: they've all got The Crazy. Also, their Fair Tax plans make it easier to cheat on your taxes and aren't progressive, but whatever, I'm sure that's not totally why they want to do it.
But, you've right, there are at least 700 of them in DC.
MOE: Whoa Robert Gates slipped on ice. I just did that. And foreclosures are up! I'm sorta glad I turned on CNN but it's making me kinda ADD
MEGAN: Look at how the blue set shines off of Ali Velschi's chrome dome.
It's very Max Headroom'y
MOE: Wow Detroit's foreclosure rate is as bad as Stockton, California's. Detroit actually convinced people to buy its real estate? Man, I'm sorry Motown. You get it all kinds of rough..
OH yeah should we mention Roger Clemens? I have nothing to say about Roger Clemens bc didn't know who he is.
MEGAN: Well, it's good to know that I can turn the TV off at 10:00 when wall-to-wall coverage of his hearing starts.
He's a hopped-up-on-roids baseball player who, unlike the rest of 'em, got caught.
MOE: Hey, speaking of performance enhancing drugs I haven't taken mine this morning and I'm really dying but what I really meant to talk to you about was.
Who McCain will ask to be his running mate
MEGAN: I love, btw, how Pawlenty is all "NOT ME! NOT ME!"
Toomey's full of shit and just naming his friends.
And, um, his major donors, BTW
MOE: You know, they talk about presidential names but it's kinda sad if your name isn't even VICE presidential sounding. Bobby Jindal? Tim Tawplenty? Anyway, for people like me who didn't know who any of these people are, Mark Sanford and Tim Pawlenty and Bobby Jindal are governors (duh) of South Carolina, Minnesota and Louisiana respectively.
MEGAN: I've been hearing Kay Bailey's name and Liddy Dole, but they're generally recognized as, um, not great brain trusts. I don't see them getting along wiht McCain that well.
(Senators from Texas and South Carolina).
Bobby Jindal would be a good choice- he got the good old boys in Louisiana to vote for him, but he'd be stupid to take it.
I'm still curious why no one has said Rick Perry.
(Governor of Texas).
MOE: Can you rank these people from most/least offensive?
MEGAN: Define "offensive"
They're all likely to be more conservative than McCain
MOE: Really?
MEGAN: I guess maybe Charlie Crist would be the least offensive, but he's dogged by those pesky gay rumors and won't get it.
Here's a right wing run-down of who they want to see.