It was inevitable that the Huffington Post would somehow end up sullied by recruiting such a massive army of unpaid contributors. But few would have imagined something this awful: Valued HuffPo political blogger Carol Anne Burger shot herself Friday, and police now believe she was responsible for the brutal murder of her former lover two days earlier. Burger was a scuba-diving instructor who brought an amateur's zeal to her work, and in this sense embodied the best of HuffPo's democratic approach, calling to mind fellow contributor Mayhill Fowler, who broke the "Bittergate" story. But the website will not be eager to associate itself with Burger's energy in dispatching Jessica Kalish.

• Chris Matthews, MSNBC: "It was romance. It was realism... I thought it was fabulous."

A media pool report on Barack Obama's Daily Show taping indicated he handled the appearance with his usual calm rationality and didn't blow everything with an ill-advised gaffe, as nervous nellies (or anyone who has tracked Democratic presidential nominees for the past, oh, two decades) might worry he would. According to the Daily News' Mike McAuliff, the candidate (wisely!) wouldn't even indulge a joke about old people in Florida:

The Times got to watch a very special one-minute trailer for Barack Obama's half-hour informercial, set to air tonight on NBC, CBS, Fox and various other networks. And it sounds like a total dork-fest. No flying saucers, fashion makeovers, musical guests, or variety show gimmicks, as the media elite has helpfully suggested. No, it looks like we're getting tons of "strings, flags, presidential imagery and... Americana," plus a whole lot of white people:

It's hard to tell if magical things just happen to Tina Fey, or if the magic is in the comedy writer/producer's telling. The movie Psycho transforms her three-year-old daughter into a miniature murder detective; she has a life-changing hug with Oprah Winfrey; the Republicans nominate a vice presidential nominee who looks almost exactly like her. And then there was the anecdote the 30 Rock star shared with Late Night host Conan O'Brien last night, in which Sarah Palin offers up daughter Bristol to babysit Fey's daughter on the set of Saturday Night Live. The incident would be a stretch even as the premise of an SNL skit, but there you have it. Click the video icon to watch.

Barack Obama is a stimulating speaker. The Daily Show is of course an entertaining and provocative show. Barack Obama on the Daily Show less than a week before the election? Stomach-knotting, sweat-inducing and nerve-wracking. It will be hard for supporters to laugh during Obama's confirmed appearance on the news-comedy show Wednesday if they spend the whole time cringing at the thought of the Democratic presidential nominee making some sort of gaffe that would blow his commanding lead over rival John McCain. Opponents, meanwhile, will be far more ready to laugh at Obama than with him. (Video from Obama's Aug. 2007 appearance is after the jump)

Just as news organizations and rock bands sue to keep their good names out of political mudfights, one might think Budweiser would seek to quash that clever pro-Barack Obama remake of its annoying 'Whassup' ads from 2000. But it turns out the beermaker has no choice: Budweiser only licensed the concept from Charles Stone III after the filmmaker created it as a non-commercial short. The expired five-year license cost just $37,000, but Stone told BusinessWeek he's now happy about how things worked out:

The Wall Street Journal does not, historically, endorse presidential candidates. But the newspaper has a new owner since the last election, Rupert Murdoch, who said he was considering changing that policy. It's hard to imagine the rabid right-wingers of the Journal editorial page jumping in the tank for Democratic nominee Barack Obama. But if the WSJ were to be planning an Obama endorsement, it would seem natural for conservative blogger Matt Drudge to get ahold of the news first, as he seemed to be implying in one of tonight's headlines, pictured at left. (The graphic reads "Presidential Material/Barack Obama.")

This year is just terrible across the board for local TV stations, whose traditional advertisers in financial services, automotive and retail have been slammed by the economic downturn. The only way they've been able to struggle through is with billions of dollars in political advertising, led by a record $250 million over five months for Barack Obama. According to the Times' David Carr, that's "a rate of advertising that outstrips Burger King, Apple and Gap on an annualized basis." What will the stations do when the election is over? Hell, what will Saturday Night Live, the Daily Show and David Gergen do?

Granted, most of the trends associated with the presidential campaign are morbidly depressing, from hateful posters to bigoted screaming at rallies to Sarah Palin's sad and frightening interview flubs. But in the last few weeks before the election, a flurry of campaign-inspired "yo momma" jokes have taken their rightful place alongside Tina Fey's Palin impression and Chris Rock's "Hillary Lost!" routine as among the rare bright spots. Tech executive Anil Dash got the ball rolling on his Twitter stream last week (see headline to this post!) and the jokes just kept snowballing. "Yo mama so fat, McCain refers to her as 'Those Ones,'" wrote loresjoberg. More:

Shocker. No, wait, the other thing. [Times]

Face it, Sarah Palin is now a fixture among the East Coast elite whether she wins or loses Nov. 4. The Republican vice presidential nominee has lodged herself like some kind of tumor in the media psyche. Saturday Night Live is quite lucratively obsessed with her, as are newspapers, magazines, websites, the list goes on basically forever. And now, says the Hollywood Reporter, "producers and agents across the entertainment world" want her to star in a daytime talk show, news program or reality TV series, at least in between her attempts to rule the free world.

[Update: The attack was made-up!] The Smoking Gun found the Twitter stream of the John McCain campaign volunteer who reported being attacked by a Barack Obama supporter earlier tonight. The volunteer, Ashley Todd, was blogging just before and after the incident, and her Twitter posts were available to the public up until a few hours ago, when she set them to private. That's probably prudent: a presidential campaign trying to peel working-class voters away from the Democrats probably doesn't want people getting the wrong idea about what it means when one of its volunteers calls Little Italy "the wrong side of Pittsburgh."

The White House press secretary hinted he would do it in May, and now Scott McClellan has finally pulled the trigger, telling CNN's D.L. Hughley "I will be voting for Barack Obama... I am going to support the candidate that has the best chance for changing the way Washington works and getting things done." This scenario looks familiar, and may presage more last-minute Obama endorsements to come.

"The call ends with [Fox's Sean] Hannity's declaring: 'Obama's list of friends reads like a history of radicalism.'" [Huffington Post]

Everyone is extremely worked up about Sarah Palin's $150,000-per-month quest for the most elite finery in the land. Republican donors, for example, are upset their money is being spent so ostentatiously. (Just wait until they find out how much of the money is going to gay fashion moguls!) Lawyers and accountants are talking tax liability. But how much are "Hollywood" Barack Obama and wife Michelle spending on their radical chic? Well, you can start with a $1,500 suit for Barack, which contains an opulent 3 percent cashmere and comes from "the largest suitmaker in the United States," And as conservative blog Town Hall reveals, via Wonkette, Michelle may have spent tens of dollars more (or less, depending on whether she accessorizes properly):

What business does Sarah Palin have spending $75,000+ at Neiman Marcus and $50,000 at Saks if she's not planning to be part of the "Washington elite" or "seek their good opinion," as she told the Republican National Convention in September? She probably wants to look snazzy on TV, because the poors get the same channels as the elites, and appearances matter more than they should. John Edwards knew that, so he spent $400 on hair cuts until he was accused of being a slick poverty pimp by various conservatives. Now that Politico has caught the Republicans' designated working-class icon being far more profligate — Edwards could get 10 haircuts just on the Palin/McCain ticket's monthly hair and makeup bill — reps for the "small town... hockey mom" aren't even bothering to deny their hypocrisy:

The Obama campaign, not content with the eleventy billion dollars it raised last month, is going to squeeze countless thousands of dollars out of news outlets who want the "privilege" of covering election night in Chicago. That'll be $935 for access to the filing center, please. Or for those publications on a budget (all of them), $880 will buy you a nice spot on a riser! The public must know what the view is like from the sixth step on the riser there, fellas! The campaign says it's just covering costs, which would indicate risers made of white gold. Full rate card after the jump; reporters across the country are, right now, literally begging for their bosses to purchase them access to the heated section. Sad:

Future President of the United States of America Sarah Palin is already proving to be a valuable inspiration to our nation's patriotic art community! Or at least to raggedy, drug-ridden "street art" types in elitist coastal cities. It's not just the happy-go-lucky "Frightening Prospect" posters you see here—we've found three more examples as well, making it an official trend, with room to spare! Click through to view the collected opinions of America's great artistic minds:

Wow, who would have guessed??! It turns out Michelle Obama didn't order Iranian caviar, two whole lobsters, a lobster hors d'oeuvres and champagne from room service the other night, as the Post's Page Six claimed. The wife of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama ate an entirely different treasonous elitist meal (probably) somewhere else. In fact, she wasn't even staying at the Waldorf-Astoria, as Page Six had it. Whoops. The gossip section so did not see this coming, because why wouldn't you run with something so plausible? "We regret the mistake, and our former source is going to regret it, too," it said today. To really make up for it, the paper went ahead and smeared conservative Ann Coulter, by way of trashing McCain: