We don't blame Sarah Palin for underwhelming us tonight. If anything, it was our own fault for hoping she'd use the opportunity of her first day as a Fox News analyst to roll out the 2010 version of "Death Panels."

Muppet-haired white crook Rod Blagojevich now says that his comment to Esquire that he is "blacker than Barack Obama" was a "stupid thing to say." And by "stupid," Rod Blagojevich means "dope." [AP]

The disgraced ex-governor of Illinois apparently failed to take his Elvis Presley pointer-finger dance into account in assessing his relative level of whiteness in a new interview with Esquire.

After London's smallish Obama on My Mind and Kenya's amateurish Obama: The Musical, Germany has finally created a true Barack Obama musical extravaganza with HOPE: Einer Neuen Generation. Palin has skanky back-up dancers and Reverend Wright sings angry gospel.

• The epic mess at NBC continues: The last-place network is now thinking above moving Jay Leno to a 11:35pm-12:05am time slot and then having Conan O'Brien follow him for a full hour. But no deal has been reached, and there's still a possibility that Conan will abandon ship. [NYT, LAT, BN, NYT]
• Rudy Giuliani is under fire for idiotic comments he made on Good Morning America today. George Stephanopoulos: He isn't looking so hot either. [NYT]
• Changes at the Times: Star reporter Sewell Chan is headed to the paper's D.C. bureau; and the NYT's City Room blog has a new editor. [Politico, NYT]
• If you love Jersey Shore, maybe you'll be interested in Jersey Couture? [THR]
• Bad news for tweens, pervs: Hannah Montana is coming to an end. [MTV]
• Ben Silverman's studio/glorified ad agency is teaming up with Yahoo! [NYT]
• President Obama's State of the Union address will not—repeat not—conflict with Lost's season opener on February 2. So you can relax now. [WSJ]
• Did Reuters kill a story so as to not offend billionaire Steve Cohen? [Gawker]
• If you work at Condé Nast and you go get a boob job, you probably shouldn't show your new assets to your colleagues when your return to the office. (Even if you're behind closed doors and you keep your sports bra on.) [NYP]

Ending speculation, Carlton Cuse tweeted "No State of the Union conflict with LOST! We go Feb. 2!" Meanwhile White House press secretary Robert Gibbs is saying he doesn't "foresee a conflict." So, the State of the Union is probably on Jan. 26, and may actually only be The Corner's second-least favorite show on television.

Last year, the incoming Barack Obama administration promised to be... a whole bunch of "hotties" who would impress us with their stylish dress as they solved all our problems. Many of these hotties just had a bad year.

First PETA used Michelle Obama in an unauthorized ad; now, Weatherproof has plastered Barack's face on a billboard just because he wore their coat once. What's next, telling you the Obamas read our blog daily? No, we respect their privacy.

It took 20 hours to get Kate's hair to a socially acceptable state. LiLo gets kicked off a private jet and a commercial airplane. Gary Coleman has a seizure. Political relevance infiltrates Page Six, and it's not okay: Thursday gossip.

Currently, the White House is considering either Jan. 26th or Feb. 2nd for Obama's first State of the Union Address. Do you know anything else that is on Feb. 2nd? Yep: The 'Lost' premier. Obama is definitely a communist.

Matthews is one of the nation's chief practitioners of the narrative-constructing outrage-bait political journalism that Politico has perfected into a foul art, and he is one of the nation's chief distributors of its wares. In fact, he already knew the answer to his questions: It was provided by Newsweek's Mike Isikoff, who was a Hardball guest on December 30, when Matthews previewed his irritation with the Politico-Cheney axis:

Last July's Harper's cover story was an essay by Kevin Baker about how Barack Obama is basically Herbert Hoover 2. Today The New Republic has a story on how Barack Obama is totally Herbert Hoover, redux.

Roger Stone—yes, that Roger Stone—has published his apparently annual best- and worst-dressed lists!

Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds saw this picture of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, hanging out at the Kennedy Center Honors, in the White House Flickr, and he thought there was something... interesting about it.

Barack Obama, President of SEX. Where do various wingnut moralist pundits stand on this blatant exhibitionism? [Pic: Getty. Click to enlarge, for titillation.]

The Secret Service is investigating an effigy hung (hanged?) from a building in Plains, Georgia, Jimmy Carter's hometown. The doll was found hanging on Main St. along with a sign helpfully identifying it as Obama. Small town USA! [AP] [photo]

Brent Bozell—of the ultra-lame Parents Television Council and conservative Media Research Center—was on Fox & Friends this morning to announce MRC's picks for "the year's worst reporting." His indictment of ABC's Terry Moran should be a last-minute addition.

Pictures may only be worth a thousand words, but they can certainly sear an image onto your brain for all eternity. Here are the pictures that defined 2009 on Gawker.

Important AP news analysis: is Barack Obama sleepy? He gets three hours less sleep a night than Bush and he stayed up until 1 a.m. one night!

Barack Obama cut short a game a golf for a "personal matter" and returned to his family compound on Hawaii in what pool reporters are describing as a "very high speed and dramatic" motorcade trip. An ambulance has been spotted outside their vacation home, but CNN's Ed Henry just reported that the incident concerns "a minor injury with a friend who's travelling with the first family." MSNBC's Chuck Todd adds (see the clip above) that the injury occurred "on the ocean."