Pol is to Politics as Twit is to Twitter

1) Mikey, we hardly knew ye: How long before Grandmaster Steele reaches out to Bobby Brown? Really, the only way the RNC could be any more entertaining is if they had put Gary Busey in charge. Then they'd all be riding big choppers and attending ritual fire ceremonies. Hey, there's still time....

2) Best pop culture "grok" of politics this week: On this week's "Big Love" [HBO 3-8-09] Bill's American Indian business partner Jerry explains why the Western Utes have put the kibosh on their casino plans: "Welcome to the dirty world of tribal politics. We haven't been good with the Utes since the Blackfoot War of 1877. They're an arrogant treaty tribe. Not all of us had it handed to us on a silver platter." Proving again that politics is as all American as cherry pie. Sorry, Cardinal Richelieu.

3) "Ladies and gentlemen, P. T. Barnum lives!" The new "Man in Black" has the Grumpy Old Party runing scared. Or at least driving slowly past the car wreck and saying nothing. Rush, time to cover "Hurt." Really.

4) Well at least somebody found a theme: Sen. Richard Shelby, interviewed on ABC's "This Week" [3-8-09] first opined that "The American people don't trust the banks." Then, when asked about whether he'd be okay with the fall of Citibank, replied, "Well, whatever." Can you hear it, "The GOP, whatever, it's all good." Let the focus groups begin.

5) Never have so few talked so long about so little: Rick Santorum and Greta Van Sustern tackle the evils of earmarks [Fox 3-9-09]. Stunning in their lack of ability to comprehend what politics is all about. Obvious that neither ever had to get a bridge fixed. Really. Neither.

6) Best political writing of late: Richard Cohen on what's likely coming our way: "The rage that is coming will change the politics of our time. Barack Obama will either figure out how to channel it, as Franklin D. Roosevelt did, or he will be flattened by it, as Lyndon Johnson was. Obama's challenge might even be greater than FDR's." [NYDN 3-3-09]

7) Wealthy, famous, inexperienced candidate alert! The buzz that columnist Larry Kudlow may be considering a run against Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd next year. Larry, Larry, Larry. Sure, Dodd's a bit behind now but he does scream back and he's got the only Senate Committee chairmanship that really matters this cycle. Twenty months of roasting Wall Street on a spit will make him a new man. You just watch.

8) Here comes the political "Catcher in the Rye" Rod Blagojevich has garnered a six-figure-deal to spill everything about what his publicist terms "the dark side of politics." So I guess there's going to be a lot of stories about having to eat deep-fried candy bars and getting your wife's third-cousin a job. Am I right people?

9) The most entertaining 2010 U.S. Senate race continues: Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning continues to war against NRSC Chairman John Cornyn and fellow KTY Sen. Mitch McConnell, both of whom want him out of his reelection race. Says one GOP fundraiser interviewed by Politico [3-3-09], "The easiest way to get rid of [Bunning] is not give him any money." Well, yeah, except that he's obviously gone to ground and will be running this campaign from the bunker.

10) Advise and Consent: First the WP runs a pointless front-page story about the old FBI investigation into whether LBJ aide Jack Valenti was gay. Then the WSJ runs a story implicating LBJ press aide Bill Moyers' participation in the affair. Then Moyers writes a letter to the WSJ defending himself and alluding to his working in a Senate office building the day a gunshot rang out one floor above him as "a U.S. Senator comitted suicide over his son's outing." For those interested in political history, it was Wyoming Sen. Lester C. Hunt. Hunt's son had been arrrested for soliciting prostitution from an undercover male police officer in Lafayette Square. The story goes that Republican senators blackmailed Hunt, forcing him to resign or have his son be outed in the press back home. Hunt was a Democrat and the Wyoming Gov. was a Republican. So Hunt brought a rifle into his Senate office and killed himself.