Paterson To Appoint Gillibrand; Obamas Are Fisting Enthusiasts

New York Governor David Paterson is about to appoint Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand to Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat, the right is obsessed with fisting and there’s new evidence that racism isn’t confined to the South.

After nearly twenty-four hours of speculation that Caroline Kennedy dropped out of the running for Hillary Clinton’s seat because she knew she wouldn’t get it, one of the crack reporters at the New York Times who Kennedy recently insulted as being better for the ladymag beat, Nicholas Confessore, reported yesterday that it’s actually because she’s got some nanny and tax issues. Whoops. Although, given Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s recent approval by the Senate Finance Committee despite his tax and nanny issues — let alone her time vetting folks as part of Obama’s VP search team — you might understand why she thought it might not be a big deal. Hmm, different rules for men and women? How progressive.

But Kennedy is out and, reportedly, upstate New York Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand is in. She’s actually somewhat of a strange choice, since the Democrats will have some trouble holding her district in a special election — and since New York is likely to lose two seats (probably from upstate) in the next redistricting, it’ll be even harder to keep it Democratic in 2012. But she’s also facing opposition because she’s a rather conservative Democrat on issues from guns to LGBT equality — and a conservative Dem when Paterson had Carolyn Maloney waiting in the wings. Strange choice for his part — but at least you can’t say that it’s because she’s easier on the eyes.

In other news, Barack Obama is set to lift the global gag rule "soon," though, for political reasons and so as not to piss of the fundies, he didn’t do it on yesterday’s Roe anniversary as Bill Clinton did. Of course, every extra day he waits is another day it stays in effect, so… um, let’s get on that, mm-kay? I mean, he’ll have at least until next week to sign the Ledbetter Act into law (it passed the Senate yesterday, but they changed some wording so it’ll have to pass the House again) and you know he’s not going to do two big feminist agenda items in a week, so this seems like a good week to get the gag rule done. Unless he’s too busy "fisting" Michelle, as a Fox News body language expert who apparently had Monty Python-esque sex education called the Obama’s fist-bumping habit:






But it’s probably the Fox News viewers who make up the 25% of Americans that thought Obama was a Muslim on Election Day, so we probably shouldn’t tell them was fisting really is lest we lose yet another reason to laugh at them.

Besides bringing fisting to the American conversation, Obama is bringing daily economic briefings to the White House to reassure everyone that he’s on top of the issue, since surely he knows that the only thing that changes faster than the economy are tectonic plates. But when you heard it, you felt reassured, right? Hang a “Mission Accomplished” banner on Wall Street, then, the good times, they are a-comin’.

The good times are also coming for everyone but Hilda Solis, who’s nomination to the Department of Labor is being stalled by Republicans over fears she’ll make it easier for workers to unionize (hint: she will, that’s part of why Obama got elected), and Lisa Jackson, whose nomination Senator John Barrasso is totally not anonymously holding up, that’s someone else. Well, and the guy in New York who makes the “Drunken Negro Face” cookies and predicts Obama and Lincoln will soon have a lot in common. We’re guessing he’s gonna have some words with some big dudes in suits with earpieces. We’re just sad it’s not Hugo Weaving and his bug.