"Hillary Clinton will be on hand for Barack Obama's acceptance speech, but according to a source close to former President Bill Clinton, he will not: the source tells CNN that Clinton will not join his wife at Invesco Field Thursday night." (That's the entire story, at the moment.) [CNN]

Sure, it makes sense that gay media mogul Paul Colichman, owner of Out and the Advocate, is taking some flack because he doesn't support Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. To gay rights advocates, after all, Obama is far preferable to his opponent. But Colichman's critics would do well to distance themselves from comrade-in-arms Neal Boulton, the Genre editor who slammed Colichman in Page Six today and declared his own support for Obama "whether he says he's for gay marriage or not." Pansexual playboy Boulton should realize that's easy for him to say, but for Colichman and his gay partner it's an entirely different story. Boulton is already married to a woman. The marriage is one of some devotion, and a natural outgrowth of Boulton's attraction to women. And it's hard to imagine the editor settling down with a man.

"We’re absolutely confident there is no credible threat to the candidate, the Democratic National Convention, or the people of Colorado." [Times]

National polls have John McCain neck-and-neck with his presidential rival, or even ahead, but the presumptive Republican nominee insisted about 4,000 times to Jay Leno tonight that he's "the underdog." (Unlike Barack Obama, who's acting like he's already been elected Ayatollah!) Then Leno teased him about his 10 houses, and McCain responded that he was imprisoned for five years in Vietnam, so let's stop talking about his houses, because they didn't have any houses in a torture cell. What? The point seemed to be that McCain is not uppity, and instead of going to a fancy elite convention (this week) he's cracking wise with that other non-elite, hard-working underdog, Leno. This presumably is meant to play well with the bitters and "government pragmatists" in swing states. Here is some of the pitter patter (click the video icon).

We take it back: The Democratic National Convention is more than just a meaningless dog-and-pony show. It clearly remains a hotbed of vibrant political discourse, as demonstrated an hour ago on MSNBC, when a brave protester stood behind talking head Michelle Bernard and sent a message to the Obama-PepsiCo cabal conspiring against delicious beverages pushed off the margins of society. This is truly a defining moment of our era.

There were a few points when it seemed Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention was going to come apart, its swelling high points and applause lines overwhelmed by a few too many awkward halts and reflexive uses of the term "you see." But by the time Obama wrapped up, her vulnerability and lack of polish looked like smartly-deployed correctives to the idea her husband is smooth, arrogant and lacks humanity. If you agreed with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann when he said "I'm beginning to sound borderline sycophantic on this" speech, you might have flipped over to Fox News Channel, only to listen to a choked-up Juan Williams saying similar things about how poignant the historic oratory was. Everyone seemed to be raving about Michelle, including the guy on Fox who warned, "She didn't give the Gettysburg address — let's not pretend." If Obama scored points by being a heartfelt novice, her kids closed the deal, even as they interrupted their father's prepared remarks and gently corrected him on what city he was in (Kansas City, not St. Louis). It might seem exploitive come morning, but for now enjoy the clip after the jump. UPDATE: Plus video of Michelle Obama's "I Love This Country" moment.

"NBC News’ strategy in hiring young Luke Russert is now clear: whenever anything happens, Brian Williams can ask Luke what his dead father thinks about it." [Wonkette]

"Sampley says Fox News producers haven't invited him on to bash McCain the way he bashed Kerry." [Daily News]

There was a small, nonviolent, "mild" anti-war protest in Denver today, timed to the upcoming Democratic convention. The protest organization is stupidly named "Recreate 68," but has specifically decried the violence at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Fox News of course wanted to cover this boring thing in the most insane way possible, with race riots and burning flags and naked hippies on PCP. None of that was available, so instead Fox sent a nerdy correspondent to go right into the middle of a throng of protesters trying to march in the opposite direction. The protesters managed not to collide with the camera crew, so no one was hurt, but they refused to grant interviews and started chanting "Fuck Fox News," which means they are Censor Fascists who hate the First Amendment. Everyone has to grant interviews to everyone else, unless they are Nazis, which is why we are looking forward to our big video interview with Bill O'Reilly the next time we catch him on the street or outside his apartment or maybe in his office. Video of the leftist non-riot after the jump.

Or maybe the cable network's program guide editor knows something interesting about how Kathleen Sebelius' husband likes to be addressed. Or how Bill Clinton will be known for the next eight years! Anyway, CNN already has not only the gender but also the NAME of the VP. [CNBC via Huffington Post]

If Barack Obama is swarmed like this in the red state of North Carolina where he's four points behind, how is he going to make it out of Denver alive?? No one even cares that he's gone "quietly negative" with a secret terrorist propaganda campaign against poor John McCain, who complains he was sucker-punched by someone stooping to his level. God, Obama really is just like Paris Hilton. (Photo via Getty Images)

A new survey shows that shoppers at Wal-Mart, Kohl's, and JC Penney favor McCain, while shoppers at Target and Macy's favor Obama. American Apparel shoppers, of course, favor Spank Rock. [Ad Age]

It's bad enough that 500 bloggers are wasting time and energy "covering" the pointless media spectacle of the upcoming political conventions. Can't tightly-orchestrated pageantry and vacant messaging be left for the television networks and political trades while top bloggers find important actual news that would otherwise go ignored? Apparently not. But the bloggers are making themselves look even more silly and co-opted by accepting a package of goodies, and an embarrassingly nerdy one at that. Reports the Wall Street Journal:

MSNBC is still not comfortable with the idea that it is the liberal counterweight to Fox News. Executives at the cable news network bristle at the comparison, claiming that while individual "point of view" shows like Keith Olbermann's Countdown skew leftward, the network as a whole has no unifying ideology, as at Fox. But demographics may be making such a bias inevitable. The Times points out today that, amid heightened political activity among young, mostly liberal voters, MSNBC has added nearly 40,000 18-to-34-year-old viewers during prime time, far more than either Fox News or CNN. It is now number one among the young in those hours, while Fox News is dead last. That makes sense politically: Republicans are, as a group, significantly older the Democrats. Perhaps most revealing are the news nets' seemingly bizarre choices of internet partners.

"A source tells us Clinton visited a New York plastic surgeon early this month and received injections of a 'dermafiller' in her face... 'It appears that she has restored a youthful look with a combination of injectables.'" Click the picture for a close-up. [R&M]

Alan Colmes is famous as a nightly sacrifice victim to the Repubican Gods who run Fox News Channel. Al Franken once called him the "zeta male" of the duo Hannity & Colmes and joked that Colmes' duties included making coffee and cleaning Fox honcho Roger Ailes' private bathroom. But something has transformed the little runt. Maybe he's taken heart in the nation's mounting hatred of all things Republican. Or maybe the John Edwards scandal has energized him. Or perhaps he just really, really hates John McCain. Anyway, here's a great clip in which Sean Hannity almost beats him to death. Click the video icon. [YouTube via Wonkette]

Rev. Jeremiah Wright: "Nope. I'm not publishing anything. I'm not going on any book tours." [Essence via Wonkette, Previously]

So apparently a hysterical new "non-partisan" group, started mostly by bitter supporters of Hillary Clinton, has been formed with a very important mission. The New Agenda will fight for paid maternity leave, affordable health care and fair pay for women. Or at least they will do those things once they are done getting Chris Matthews fired from his job as host of Hardball on MSNBC, which is at the top of their self-described "to-do list," because Matthews, a longtime Democratic Congressional aide, is at the nexus of all types of awful problems for women, including wife beating:

"A source who has seen [Rielle] Hunter's baby says, 'She looks like John Edwards in a onesie.'" [Daily News]