Barack Obama was on the Daily Show last night. It was a satellite interview, and it was Jon Stewart interviewing a politician he actually respects, which is generally (invariably) a recipe for awkwardness. But it turned out fine. Better than expected, actually, because Stewart actually made jokes in the second segment, and Obama played along without embarrassing himself. Then Stewart made Obama solemnly ask if America was happy with its cell phone service. Clip attached.

Some shadowy 527s—and one li'l 501(c)4—with hilarious names like "Citizens for a Safe and Prosperous America" and "The Legacy Committee" and "The Justice Society of a New and Safer America" bought some airtime in North Carolina to show off their gross Willie Horton-style attack ads about how Barack Obama is soft on crime. Did you know he is against the dealth penalty? It's true! You can learn all about it after the jump.

Hey, a camera phone photo of Chelsea Clinton partying at Bump, where she hung out as part of her whirlwind weekend tour of Philadelphia gay bars! Could this be one the breathless photo-ops mentioned in Sunday's story? Maybe the one where an excited woman announced that she'd grabbed the former first daughter's ass? Probably not, as it looks like there's not another woman for miles in this shot. But still. It is a photo of Chelsea Clinton surrounded by drunk homosexuals. [Previously]

Oh, hey, all three U.S. presidential candidates will stoop to a level of pandering heretofore only imagined by theoretical physicists and appear on tonight's episode of World Wrestling Entertainment's Raw. John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama were all invited to appear in the ring, and they were all wise enough to decline. Still, they happily taped appearances, to air tonight on USA. "WWE has tried to get the presidential candidates to square off before," according to Broadcasting & Cable. "It was unable to arrange an arm-wrestling match between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000." Thank god things are different this time around. [Broadcasting & Cable] Update: OH GOD IT'S WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT. "DO YOU SMELL WHAT BARACK IS COOKING?" He actually says this. Seriously. Clip after the jump.

Wondering what will happen in tomorrow's Pennsylvania primary? You could look to national trends or polls of likely Pennsylvania voters. Or you could make like NBC and only poll the important voters of Pennsylvania: gun-owners, bowlers, and, yes, beer-drinkers. Nothing proves that you understand the working class like reinforcing a cartoon stereotype of blue-collar life! Of course the bowlers and gun-owners don't care for Obama. The beer-drinkers, though, are split. They should've specified domestic beer-drinkers, we're sure the Obama votes are coming from import snobs. Guzzling Kölsch and eating caviar! Elitists!

Last week (or a century ago), Barack Obama got in a bunch of trouble for making a "gaffe", which is a inside joke/cliche word political journalists use when a candidate accidentally (and inelegantly) says something he or she actually believes, and then the journalists beat up on the candidate for a month or so over it. His gaffe was that he said white blue-collar people seek solace in cultural identifiers like religion and guns when the economy fails them. Regardless of whether you find that to be a condescending notion, it seems harder to argue with his statement that these voters are "bitter," because everyone in America is "bitter" these days. Still, it became known as "bittergate," and it topped the headlines last week just as Hillary's snipergate did the week before. Obama is an elitist, we were told, over and over and over again. Elitist! And latte-sipping! Someone (Dowd?) probably called him "effete," too. After a full week of hammering this point home, that Obama is elitist, Hillary pulled ahead of Obama in the national polls for the first time in months, finally. She pulled ahead one point, on Saturday. And on Sunday, Obama was back ahead by 2. Pennsylvania's primaries are tomorrow (FINALLY THANK JESUS) but they won't solve this horrible horrible mess.

Back when Chelsea Clinton was a little girl, she was, to the press, the only "off limits" member of the Clinton family. Now she's an adult, and actively campaigning for her mother, and acting more or less like any other Clinton surrogate with her public appearances and politicking. And everyone still treats her with kid gloves, and gets very upset when she's spoken to like any other campaign operative. It's all quite condescending, but whatever. She can handle herself. Look how nicely she deceives: "'There was some talk in the media about whether it was true or whether it was not true,' she said. 'Her family has said it's true in the interim, but what matters to me in the following story is that no one ever doubted that it could be true in our country. So here's the story we heard . . . .'" That's a beautiful way to introduce a lie, isn't it? [LAT]

The general consensus about last night's Democratic debate is that the media came off looking the worst. That consensus is based on, of course, media reaction. Alessandra Stanley read some odd "disgruntled employee/imperious boss dynamic between Mr. Stephanopoulos and Mrs. Clinton" but everyone else just saw two moderators asking the most inane, navel-gaving, pointless, content-free, media-obsessed questions ever. Then some petty sniping between the two candidates while they each tried to out-exasperate the other. It was grim.

Bruce Springsteen endorsed Barack Obama, leading to terrible headlines across this great nation and plenty knee-jerk hipster Boss-hate. Whatevs, guys, Tunnel of Love is a desert island disc. The political question: does it matter? Does Bruce still have blue-collar cred? He's wasted a bit less of it than some celebs have by not blogging on HuffPo or whining about dead polar bears, but he also appeared with John Kerry back in 2004 and we all know how that turned out. Anyway, biggest endorsement since Oprah! But endorsements still don't really matter! Bruce says Barack "speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years," which is a reference to white people made bitter after their jobs disappear and clinging to god and guns. Those are pretty much the people Bruce sings about when not singing about his wives. After the jump, a collection of utterly terrible Springsteen lyric jokes we removed from this post.

The only adults we know who actually eat breakfast eat sensible things like bagels or bloody marys. But according to this annoying Times story on "microtrends" in political polling (one in a series of ten million identical pieces every paper in the country prints every election season), the electorate defines itself by its choice in shitty cereal. We have never heard of whatever trail mix garbage the Obama voters supposedly enjoy, while Clinton and McCain supporters' cereals of choice appear to have been devised not by polling but by a lazy observational comedian. Fiber One! Because John McCain is very very old, and old people have difficulty moving their bowels. [NYT]

Hillary Clinton will do her awkward, vaguely joke-ish all-in-good-fun routine with Stephen Colbert this week, which might be more entertaining than her last 500 talk show appearances, as politicians are rarely able to figure out how to be "in" on his joke without saying something regrettable. The news was broken during Colbert's interview last night with Hardballer Chris Matthews, who seemed, honestly, a broken, beaten-down, exhausted shell of his usual self. Seriously. He barely got a word in edgewise and at one point, when discussing his boyhood dream of being a Senator, he looked on the verge of tears. Did last Sunday's amusingly embarrassing Times Magazine profile... actually embarrass him? Nothing else ever has! We think there are serious, fundamental problems with Chris Matthews' world-view and imagine he's probably irreparably damaging the way we conduct democracy but obviously we have nothing against him personally, so we hope he feels better soon! The uncomfortable interview is after the jump.

A couple days ago, Huffington Post's "OffTheBus," a political blog inside the political blog that is the rest of HuffPo, broke a story: Barack Obama thinks Americans are bitter! You have hopefully heard about this by now, as it was all over the TV all weekend, this whole "Barack Obama thinks economic troubles color people's world views" crisis, so we will spare you the details and instead point and laugh at OffTheBus's poor Jay Rosen detailing all the varied and confused ways every single media outlet on Earth refused to give them credit for a legitimate scoop. "Mayhill Fowler's Obama quotes were shown on screen, but Meet the Press made no mention of her, or OffTheBus, or the Huffington Post." Hah. It gets more convoluted from there because NO ONE UNDERSTANDS INTERNET STUFF.

Chelsea Clinton, in Portland, Oregon campaigning for her mother, apparently moved her schedule around to make time for a trip to "the 'Red Dress Party,' a mondo-alcohol-fueled dance party where nearly 2,000 gay men in various states of red dress undress (and several nearly naked straight men as well as one very colorfully decorated naked woman) invade a warehouse in Northeast Portland and dance their collective asses off to pounding disco music and the incredible Storm Large and her Balls (they were beyond fabulous)." [WWeek]

Hillary Clinton spent Saturday appealing to blue collar voters in Indiana. Which means drinking like a frat boy, obv. At a little neighborhood place called Bronko's in Crown Point, Indiana, Senator Clinton hoisted a mug of beer and then partook in a round of shots with the assembled locals. A shot of whiskey! A shot of blended Canadian whiskey. Dammit Hil, America makes the best whiskey in the world—who's reponsible for ordering Crown Royal? Wolfson? An Associated Press photog was there and captured the whole sad scene. We've got a charming gallery of hot Clinton party photos after the jump. Blue states truly lost.

Many years ago, the Bush reelection campaign site had a little gadget that allowed users to put their own slogans on Bush campaign signs. This gadget was abused, humorously. No one learns any lessons on the internet, thank god, and now a site created by a Barack Obama supporter allows you to upload any photo you want and stick it in the candidate's official logo. Animal has a bit of fun with this. Can any of you do better than this terrifying Julia Allison/MisShapes/Corey Kennedy triptych? [Animal]

So Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's doughy chief strategist, finally got booted from the campaign last weekend. The majority of her campaign team hated him for some time, so his departure will be welcomed by insiders. They felt that his strategy was unsuccessful, and they were right. But the specific reason for Penn's departure was his idiot move of meeting with the Colombian government, in his day job as CEO of massive PR firm Burson-Marsteller, to represent them on the opposite side of an issue from Hillary Clinton, while running her campaign. And you know what? This moment was inevitable. The very idea of having a man simultaneously running a presidential campaign and an international PR firm is stupid, and never should have happened in the first place. You fools!

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, still having their cute little class president election, are advertising in the gay press—the first time any presidential candidates have done so, according to Editor & Publisher. Obama did it first, with "full-page and full-color, in some circumstances, ads in some of the LGBT publications in Ohio and Texas." Clinton hasn't gone that far, but the campaign is planning some buys in Pennsylvania. Obama's campaign site is currently hosting a video featuring, in the words of a tipster, a "super cute, super gay teacher." The Dems have not always been proud of their special relationship with the gay community, but this year, every vote counts. APROPOS OF ABSOLUTELY NOTHING The Daily Show talked to college student and Democratic superdelegate Jason Rae earlier this week. His favorite movie is Love, Actually, and his favorite musician is Celine Dion. Correspondent Jason Jones challenged him to an arm-wrestling competition. Video after the jump!

"I'm honored to have Heidi's support and I want to assure her that I never miss an episode of 'The Hills,' especially since the new season started."–GOP presidential candidate John McCain, to Time, on his recent endorsement from scary reality-soap abomination Heidi Montag. Then Lauren Conrad endorsed a puppy, but the puppy bit her. [Time via Us, Earlier] Photo: Heather Brand

Author and noted critic-slugger Stanley Crouch, on Hillary Clinton: "On TV, Clinton seems by turns icy, contrived, hysterical, sentimental, bitter, manipulative and self-righteous." Play along at home: which of those adjectives also describe Stanley Crouch? Hint: we don't know or care if he's sentimental, and "icy" is only an insult to ladies. (We read a day-old Crouch column because Drudge decided it and a day-old Hitchens column were important enough to be highlighted this morning. Fun fact: both columns call Hillary "hysterical"!) [NYDN]

Boy is the Times ever surprised to hear that Richard Mellon Scaife likes Hillary Clinton now! Background: Scaife underwrote the vast right-wing conspiracy against the Clintons that made the 90s so much fun. He gave The American Spectator two million bucks to create something called "The Arkansas Project," a fishing expedition that sought to uncover and publicize everything bad the Clintons ever did, ever, even the things they didn't do, and the things that weren't actually that bad. Then Bill Clinton was impeached for killing Vince Foster after their torrid sex affair, or something. But yesterday, Scaife announced that now he likes Hillary Clinton, quite a bit, because she sat down for an inverview with him and his Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The Times notes how well this meeting went and how much of a surprise it is to hear Scaife say nice things about Hillary Clinton, but they don't note that they wrote this same story in February of 2007, the last time Scaife claimed to have totally come around on this Hillary Clinton character after a full decade of doing everything in his power to destroy her life. [Via Radosh, who suspects vast right-wring trickery.]