From the Pork Barrel: The Hillary Spider

* I have no idea what The Hillary Spider is all about or what it wants. All I do know is that it's going to be controlling our foreign policy for the next four-to-eight years, so we'd better be nice to it.

* I wonder if the brand new presidential limo can shoot oil slicks. (Was that lazy? That was lazy wasn't it? I think it was lazy. Sorry for being lazy.)

* CNN thinks Sarah Palin might just maybe have her eye on the presidency in 2012. That would be the first I've heard of such a preposterous idea. (You just keep thinking, CNN. That's what you're good at.)

* Who cares if Gov. Janet Napolitano hasn't quite pinned down how to keep her Arizona's homeland secure. The Unites States is way smaller than Arizona, so that should be cake. (It is, isn't it?)

* Megan Carpentier educates us all on "How not to write about sexism and Hillary Clinton." It's harder than you'd think. (Is it sexist to link to a picture of Hillary Clinton as a spider? Or would that just be speciesist? I'm okay with being speciesist.)

* Criticism of a Thomas Friedman column? That's unpossible!

* Good news! Dick Cheney is only five days away from the end of his second term, and he still hasn't made any mistakes! What a guy!

* Fucking goats! Why are they always starting fires all the time?

Tags: Arizona, CNN, Dick Cheney, Gaza, Hillary Clinton, Homeland Security, International Affairs, Israel, Janet Napolitano, New York Times, Obama Administration, Pork Barrel, Sarah Palin, Thomas Friedman

Ed Rendell Says Janet Napolitano Has No Life, Just Like Ed Rendell

Barack Obama's new Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano is a pretty smart lady: current governor of Arizona, former U.S. attorney and state Attorney General. Clearly, she is well-prepared to take a top cabinet position, on account of not being married!

At least, that's what Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell said the other day, speaking near a microphone he assumed was off.

Hint to politicians: the microphone is always, always on…

"Janet's perfect for that job," Rendell is heard to say. "Because for that job, you have to have no life. Janet has no family. Perfect. She can devote, literally, 19, 20 hours a day to it."

Now Ed Rendell is under fire for being jerky, and sexist, because "has no family" is code for "unmarried" (and as every single lady knows, your relatives get revoked if you don't put a ring on it by age 35).

Chuck Ardo, spokesman for Rendell, denied the remarks were sexist, saying the governor takes Napolitano's qualifications "for granted."

"His comments simply referred to the demands of the new position that she is going to take," Ardo said around noon. "He believes that public servants at that level of government have no lives, including himself."

Ed Rendell, for whatever it's worth, is married with one son. His wife, Marjorie O. Rendell, is a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, chair of a U.S. Judicial Conference Committee and an elected member of the American Law Institute.

I guess we can assume she has no life either, in that she is married to Ed Rendell.

Tags: Arizona, Ed Rendell, Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, Pennsylvania

President-Elect Obama Announces His Super Secret National Security Team

Well, Barack Obama just gave his (by my count) 413th press conference since being elected as the next president. This time around, it was to introduce his national security team.

The rundown goes like this…

* Attorney General: Eric Holder – AKA black guy with moustache

* National Security Advisor: Gen. James L. Jones – AKA clean-cut, avuncular white guy

* Secretary of Homeland Security: Janey Napolitano – AKA Hobbit woman

* Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates – AKA token Republican

* Ambassador to the United Nations: Susan Rice – AKA pixie woman

And, of course, the big surprise was his choice for Secretary of State: Hillary Clinton. Wow! What a shocker! I never, ever in a billion years would have guessed that one. Amazing, how they managed to keep a lid on that choice for all these weeks, with no leaks to the press or anything!

Man, you'd think a choice like Hillary Clinton would have dominated the news cycle for the past three weeks, rendering the actual announcement as little more than a boring bit of extra news that just gets stuck at the end of a really not all that funny post that most people probably aren't even going to read till the end.

Yep. Exciting news.

Tags: Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, Homeland Security, James Jones, Janet Napolitano, Obama Administration, Robert Gates, Susan Rice

From the Pork Barrel: Embracing the Troll

* Markos Moulitsas points out that the Senate is pretty much just as worthless under Obama as it was under Bush.

* Todd Beeton wants to know if Joe Lieberman will ever be held responsible for anything.

* No casualties reported in Rahm Emanuel's first meetings with GOP congressional leadership.

* Ron Paul wants to kill taxes on personal income and replace them with taxes on nothing. (Part 2 to his Freakonomics readers' interview.)

* As Congress brushes off Dingell, Big Three take a dump.

* John McCain happy about prospect of Napolitano appointment. Imagine that.

* The Onion: Editorial "I'm not one of those 'Love thy neighbor' Christians"

* Turns out Christmas was the only thing holding our fragile economy together all those years. How about that?

Tags: Arizona, Auto Industry, Christianity, Christmas, Economy, House of Representatives, Janet Napolitano, Joe Lieberman, John Dingell, John McCain, Markos Moulitsas, Rahm Emanuel, Ron Paul, Senate, Taxes, The Onion

Barack Obama to Remove Only Known Italian from Arizona

It's looking like a pretty safe bet that President-Elect Barack Obama will be calling up Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano — once considered a possible running mate, but ultimately dismissed due to the lack of hockey in her home state — as the Secretary of Homeland Security…

President-elect Barack Obama continues to look to key allies for coveted administration positions, with early supporter Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano the leading choice to serve as Homeland Security Secretary…

The Democrat's transition team declined to comment but sources said Ms. Napolitano is expected to get the job once Mr. Obama begins naming Cabinet choices…

Ms. Napolitano, who endorsed Mr. Obama early in the primary process over Mrs. Clinton, campaigned for him across the country all year.

A lot of left-wing bloggers and cable news prattling heads have gotten to be indignantly critical of Obama's cabinet choices as being too Clintonian so far, and Napolitano should serve well to keep that meme going, as she was appointed as U.S. attorney for Arizona by Bill Clinton in 1993. So, good news for them.

And even better news for John McCain, who's up for re-election to the Senate in 2010. It was looking like Napolitano was the only living human being with an honest to god shot of unseating him.

I wonder how much this appointment was discussed by McCain and Obama when they met in Chicago on Monday?

Probably not at all, right? Right?

Tags: Arizona, Barack Obama, Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, John McCain