And don't you think they'd notice that clause in their policies before some Politico reporter did?

The Republican National Committee will no longer offer employees an insurance plan that covers abortion after POLITICO reported Thursday that the anti-abortion RNC's policy has covered the procedure since 1991.

"Money from our loyal donors should not be used for this purpose," Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement. "I don't know why this policy existed in the past, but it will not exist under my administration. Consider this issue settled."

Steele has told the committee's director of administration to opt out of coverage for elective abortion in the policy it uses from Cigna.

Yep, issue settled, unless you happen to have a uterus, a job at the RNC and an unwanted pregnancy.

Oh well! At least the GOP's loyal donors can sleep soundly again, secure in the knowledge that their dollars will not go toward standard insurance policies that cover legal health care services for people with uteri. Nope, their dollars will only go toward important things, like web design.

“I would tell members of my family — and I have — I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now,” Biden said on NBC’s “Today” show.. “It’s not that it’s going to Mexico. It’s [that] you’re in a confined aircraft. When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft. That’s me. …

“So, from my perspective, what it relates to is mitigation. If you’re out in the middle of a field when someone sneezes, that’s one thing. If you’re in a closed aircraft or closed container or closed car or closed classroom, it’s a different thing.”

As one might expect, the idea of crippling the airlines and subways didn't go over very well with Biden's handlers, so a "clarifying" statement was quickly released. I don't know, something about it being opposite day.

So, no need for alarm. As long as we don't fly to Mexico, we can all feel free to resume riding the subway and sneezing in each other's mouths.

Here's what she had to say about all those influential bloggers who influence the media by, um, not revealing their names or any sort of nicknames or identifying handles or even an email address, probably…

"Bored, anonymous, pathetic bloggers who lie annoy me."

Not nearly as much as moronic, semi-literate, reactionary politicians annoy me.

Although I will give her this. Ben Smith, that's obviously a fake name.

White House reporters for The New York Times predict that the market collapse will force President-elect Barack Obama to abandon for now many of his campaign promises.

If his stimulus plan "doesn’t work out, he may very well be a one-term president," said Jeff Zeleny, who covered Obama's campaign. "It's hard to imagine that he could be reelected if the economy’s in the exact same position four years from now."

Too true! After all, you can't expect to win a second term if you don't keep your campaign promises.

President Bush knows what I'm talking about. He's spent his entire presidency working to fullfill his campaign pledges to destroy the economy, overextend the military and take a dump on a panda on live TV (there are still eight days left!).

To put it simply, it was a great time to be a Republican. Gains in Congress were punctuated by corruption across the aisle. Sadly though, it was not to last. Because at 4:40am, a mere four minutes later, Politico then posted a story called The Great (GOP) Depression.

Well, it's probably for the best. Because as with all things, it's better to begin comebacks in moderation. Maybe in a few months, Republicans will be able to celebrate an entire hour of good news. But until then, on their behalf, please join me in a heartfelt chant of "Four More Minutes! Four More Minutes! Four More Minutes!"

Missouri finally, goes for McCain.

The Republican won the state by a bit more than 4,000 votes.

That would leave Obama at 365 electoral votes.

Now, on the one hand, you've got those 365 electoral votes for Barack Obama. But on the other hand, Missouri has gone to the victor in 25 of the past 26 elections.

So you're either ignoring numbers or history. They say those who ignore history are forced to repeat it, but they don't say anything about those who ignore numbers, so I'm going to go ahead and call the election for John McCain.

UPDATE: Politico has added a correction, pointing out that state officials have yet to formally call Missouri, so there remains a sliver of possibility that Barack Obama will be our next president.

In just a few hours yesterday, the following vicious cycle occurred…

* In Monday morning's paper, The New York Times runs a story reporting on McCain campaign manager Rick Davis' consulting work for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which netted him $2 million.

* Davis and McCain spokesman Steve Schmidt hastily organize a conference call with political reporters, in which they accuse the Times of being "an organization that has made a decision to cast aside it's journalistic integrity to advocate for the defeat of John McCain."

* Blogger Ben Smith from Politico, who was in on the conference call, immediately writes a blog piece criticizing the McCain camp for several inaccurate statements made during the call.

* McCain spokesman Brian Rogers announces that Politico is also "in the tank" for Barack Obama.

* The New York Times writes an online news article about how the McCain camp "lashed out at The New York Times on Monday, accusing it of dropping its journalistic standards."

* Bill Keller, the executive editor of the Times, does an interview with Politico defending his paper.

* Hundreds of media sources, from The Wall Street Journal to The Atlantic to The Washington Post report on the brouhaha.

* Everyone takes a break and has lunch.

I'm not sure what happened after that because I got a really bad headache and had to lie down.

But in the midst of the posting/eye-rolling, did you ever stop to ask yourself: Who is that smooth voiceover artist who sounds like she could be a public radio announcer (if public radio were not the Commie wing of the liberal media conspiracy)?

I did, actually. And it turns out I'm not alone. Politico tells us this she-narrator is named "Joan," and she is being held in a lockbox, or a cone of silence, if you will…

Her first name is Joan. Her last name is a mystery.

"We consider that a corporate secret," said Fred Davis III, chairman of Strategic Perception, Inc., the Hollywood-based company that has been making John McCain's ads.

Wow, who knew so much strategic perceptioning went into voiceovers? There's a lot, apparently…

That a woman would narrate such an ad was a foregone conclusion. It is a rule of thumb in the business, said Kathleen Hall Jameison, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, that "frivolous content equals female voice."

Well, duh. If there's anything we females are good with, it's frivolous content. (Speaking of which, what is this Kathleen Hall Jameison person doing commenting on public policy? Get back to the mall, Kathleen!)

At any rate, now we all have a fun new game: trying to figure out who McCain's lady voiceoverist really is. My guess? Joan X is this girl's mom. God, that would be hilarious.

(Hoo boy, remember when all those jokes about 3 a.m. were funny? What was that, forty-nine months ago?)

Over at Politico, John Harris has published a handy little article on how tiny missteps and botched intentions (i.e. RFK assassination remarks, "bitter" comments, $400 haircuts) can suddenly get blown completely out of proportion and end up as lead stories in major newspapers…

I should say at the outset that I have a pretty good vantage point on this particular case — both as witness of and participant in the echo chamber…

Martin was furiously typing away, not looking up as he told me the latest: Clinton had given an interview to the editorial board of the Argus Leader newspaper in South Dakota in which she answered inquiries into why she is staying in the race by citing the fact that it's only May, and RFK had been shot and killed in June.

Here is what I was thinking: Wow. Maybe she has come unhinged? It's not as though such macabre thoughts have never occurred to me, but for Clinton to give public voice to such a scenario is bizarre. This is going to be a big story and is almost certainly going to shadow and quite likely accelerate the final chapter of her presidential campaign.

Here is what I said: Martin, quick get that item up!…

Harris wants you to know that if you think that sounds at all sleazy, it's not. Well, it's not for Politico, because they need traffic. And, besides, the New York Post did it first…

As leaders of a new publication, Politico's senior editors and I are relentlessly focused on audience traffic. The way to build traffic on the Web is to get links from other websites. The way to get links is to be first with news — sometimes big news, sometimes small — that drives that day's conversation…

I urged Martin to keep his foot on the gas: Be the first to post reaction from the Obama campaign. Obama spokesman Bill Burton quickly obliged, denouncing Clinton’s comments and saying such sentiments have "no place in this campaign." Burton's comments quickly went into Martin's blog post. Soon enough, several websites and cable news outlets were giving the story trumpet-blaring treatment.

Can you believe that? All these "websites and cable news outlets" were treating the assassination comment as if it were a huge big deal and linking back to Politico, when all Politico was doing was relentlessly pressing the issue in the hopes of scoring all that traffic.

…Clinton's clumsiness does not excuse news media clumsiness in making a minor story seem like a major one.

How dare they use Politico like that! It's outrageous!