* One in twelve New Jerseyans even dumber than you think they are.

* I'll bet I could spend all 24,000,000,000 hours of the day reading through the #michellemalkinmath hashtag on Twitter.

* Orly Taitz is just like an honorable version of Nelson Mandela.

* Is Bill O'Reilly endorsing socialism?

* Consider Philadelphia's two biggest issues — money and cheesesteaks — solved! Thanks, Dr. Phil!

Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell — a Philadelphia Eagles fan who stuck with Hillary Clinton pretty much right till the DNC — is obviously a big fan of lost causes…

Ed Rendell told RNN-TV, a regional cable news channel in the Northeast, that he has in fact tried to talk GOP Senator Arlen Specter into switching to the Democrats — oh, and so have some other important people, who Rendell probably shouldn't have mentioned.

"We've tried," said Rendell. "Myself, Senator Casey, Vice President Biden have tried to talk him into it, but he's bound and determined to stay a Republican."

I know just how Governor Rendell feels watching someone just pretty much committing suicide before your eyes. I saw Requium for a Dream that one time.

The worst part will be watching Specter go ass-to-ass with his GOP challenger during the primaries. But if you drink enough, that image will eventually get burnt from your brain.

During the Democratic primaries, he remained a staunch supporter of Hillary Clinton even after math and reality conspired to make her bid all but hopeless. But then, when the nomination was officially decided, he stood with his party and supported Barack Obama.

Now, Rendell — former mayor of Philadelphia — is in a similar predicament: Both the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers stand poised to reach the Super Bowl. Which is fine if only one of them wins their conference championship. However…

But if both of them win and advance to the Super Bowl, he will not pretend to be neutral. After all, he has been an Eagles season-ticket holder for more than 30 years and even has a postgame television show. People in Philadelphia still call him Mayor.

"I'm not going to change," he said in a telephone interview Monday. "I told the people of Pittsburgh this when I was running for re-election. If they had a longtime Pittsburgh mayor and the Steelers were in the Super Bowl and he said he was rooting for anyone other than the Steelers, they would skin him alive.

"I have to be loyal. If it costs me some political points, that’s life."

Truth be told, this story is of very minor political import. But I've been glowing ever since the Eagles handed the Giants their asses in Sunday's playoff game and looking for any excuse I could to gloat about here on the blog.

When it comes to politics, I mildly capable of exercising some small amount of "journalistic" objectivity. (Granted, a very small amount.) But objectivity can go fuck itself sideways when it comes to football.

I'm thrilled that the Eagles — after a less than inspiring couple of seasons — are a single win away from the Super Bowl. And the fact that they had to climb over the backs of the Cowboys and then the Giants to get there makes it all the better. (NFC East hatreds die hard.*)

While we're on the subject of "hating on", here's something I didn't know about Gov. Rendell…

For most governors, that would be reason to host a news conference and smile a lot. But Rendell is hardly your average governor when it comes to sports. This is a man who — legend has it — sparked the snowball-throwing frenzy in a playoff game against Dallas in 1989.

That settles it. I'm starting a campaign to get Rendell on the ticket in 2016.

We need a president who's appropriately hard on Cowboys.

* I would probably hate the Redskins, too, if there was any reason to even consider them.

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.

Specifically they're in Western Pennsylvania, at least according to that region's Congressman, Jack Murtha. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports…

"There's no question Western Pennsylvania is a racist area," said Mr. Murtha, whose district stretches from Johnstown to Washington County. "The older population is more hesitant."…

It hasn't been easy for Mr. Obama to build a base across the state, Mr. Murtha said, despite the Illinois senator being "one of the most brilliant organizers I've ever seen." Part of the reason is that Mr. Obama is a minority candidate, he said, but recently voters seem to be putting that issue aside.

This comes on the heels of Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell telling the paper earlier this year, "I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate."

Well the racists have fought back hard against both Murtha (for calling them out) and Rendell (for being Jewish.) This has resulted in a Murtha apology, wherein he still implies his constituents are racist…

Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha, a supporter of Barack Obama's presidential bid, apologized Thursday for calling western Pennsylvania "a racist area."

"While we cannot deny that race is a factor in this election, I believe we've been able to look beyond race these past few months, and that voters today are concerned with the policy differences of our two candidates and their vision for the future of our great country," he said in a statement issued by his office.

A nice gesture, but Murtha's constituents are probably already decided about the presidential election and the fate of Murtha himself. At the end of the day, he will have to let the racists be racists.

And really, is it so bad that they want to elect John McCain simply for being Panamanian?

Amidst chatter that Hillary Clinton has authorized one of her supporters to lobby the Obama campaign to choose her as Obama's running mate…

…and that this plan has been in place for the past month…

…and that she's possibly keeping her campaign alive as a bargaining chip to this end…

…it seems that everybody and their governor has their own speculations about what the hell is going through Clinton's mind today.

And, speaking of governors, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell — one of Clinton's strongest and most vocal supporters, one who repeatedly made the case for a joint ticket — has some uncharacteristic words for his former liege…

"There's no bargaining. You don't bargain with the Presidential nominee. Even if you're Hillary Clinton and you have 18 million votes, you don't bargain."

In an exclusive interview with NY1 Political Anchor Dominic Carter, Rendell added that Obama would have to be an "enormously big person" to pick Clinton as his running mate and that Clinton sometimes "couldn't help but upstage" Obama on a joint ticket.

Well, that sure didn't take long. He must keep a spare long knife in his desk drawer ready for such occasions.

"You know, normally politicians don't want to be outshone. Well you know you've got Bill Clinton lurking in the background. But Hillary Clinton, a very charismatic figure for many Americans — generally a lot of politicians don't like to put somebody like that on the ticket. You know rule one for the vice president is make sure you never upstage the president, right? It's rule one. You know, Hillary Clinton in some ways couldn't help but upstage, even if she was trying not to."

Yeah, Obama's gonna need somebody who's so uninteresting, so lifeless and unmemorable, that he or she would have no chance in the world of ever upstaging him.

Maybe someone like Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell?

I just watched this video of Pennsylvania Governor (then Philadelphia Mayor) Ed Rendell from back in 1997, and I don't understand it.

Why? Why? Why in the world would Ed Rendell be praising Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan?

I don't even mean that as an insult to Farrakhan (I'm sure he loves his kids, or whatever), but it just seems like a remarkably weird thing for a politician — a Jewish politician — to do. Didn't he realize that eleven years later, he would be a major player in the presidential race?

I can't imagine this will have a huge (or any) effect on the Pennsylvania primaries — being that Rendell is an outspoken Clinton supporter — but I wonder if this will make any waves in the wake of Obama's Jeremiah Wright "scandal." I mean, this would be equally as stupid.

And you'll never guess which one he chose…

In a surprise move, Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania has endorsed Senator Barack Obama in advance of the April 22 Democratic primary. Mr. Casey had said he would remain neutral in the race in part because he wanted to help broker a reconciliation between Mr. Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton afterward.

"I believe in my heart that there is one person who's uniquely qualified to lead us in that new direction and that is Barack Obama." Mr. Casey said during a rally in Pittsburgh Friday.

Seriously, when was the last time that we heard of someone coming forward and endorsing Hillary Clinton. And not someone who's been campaigning for Clinton since January? (And not Jack Nicholson.) Are the Clinton people even trying to get newsworthy endorsements?

And how sad is it if they are trying?

The really interesting thing about Casey's endorsement right now is that it runs in opposition to the way the rest of his state is leaning. With Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter both firmly in Clinton's camp and all the polls showing a huge lead in her favor, this makes Casey pretty much the only person in Pennsyltucky in Obama's court.

Seems odd. I wonder how a thing like that would happen…

But a person close to Mr. Casey said that the Senator had traveled to Florida over Easter and that rain had forced him to stay inside and he began to think more seriously about an endorsement. "He spent a lot of time thinking about it," this person said, and he came to the conclusion that the race was "too important" to remain on the sidelines.

Thanks, person. That explanation was thing. String of letters forming sentence.

Though the campaign later argued that he hadn't said it, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief campaign strategist [Mark Penn] told reporters this morning that Sen. Barack Obama "can't win the general election."

Oh my God! I can't believe that he actually said–

I'm sorry, but I can't even fake surprise anymore. Of course the Clinton campaign said that. If they weren't saying that, they would have been saying something else idiotic and destructive, like "Barack Obama is telling the people of Pennsylvania that they don't matter."

What's that now?

Oh, Jesus!

Mark Penn made the comment during a conference call in which the Clinton campaign and two of her supporters — Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter — argued that Obama has sent Pennsylvanians a bad signal by allegedly downplaying the importance of that state's April 22 primary.

They made the case that this memo from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe (which Nutter said the author should be fired for writing), would come back to haunt Obama in the fall if he is the Democratic nominee.

Fired, huh? Oh, this must be pretty bad. I need to take a look at this disgusting missive. Let's skip down to the part where they trash talk the Keystone State…

The Clinton campaign would like to focus your attention only on Pennsylvania — a state in which they have already declared that they are "unbeatable." But Pennsylvania is only one of those 10 remaining contests, each important in terms of allocating delegates and ultimately deciding who our nominee will be.

Wait a minute… Um… Let me read it again…

The Clinton campaign would like to focus your attention only on Pennsylvania — a state in which they have already declared that they are "unbeatable." But Pennsylvania is only one of those 10 remaining contests, each important in terms of allocating delegates and ultimately deciding who our nominee will be.

Oh, shit! Now I see it!

It's like one those pictures which, if you let your vision go out of focus and you cross your eyes just right, the image of a dolphin or a food processor or something pops out. I totally see it now. It's the Philly Phanatic doing Rocky Balboa with a strap-on cheesesteak!

Man, that's just wrong. And it makes me hungry for some reason.

(via Andrew Sullivan)