With Barack Obama apparently underperforming in the polls, he's under new pressure to pick Hillary rather than a ho-hum choice like Tom Kaine or Evan Bayh. And for some reason, Hillary and her supporters want – insist, in fact – that she be named. But why?

• Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi officially tied the knot in front of 20 guests at their Beverly Hills home on Saturday, exchanging handwritten vows and Neil Lane rings. Ellen wore a pants suit; De Rossi opted for a Zac Posen gown. [NYP]

"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]

• Christian Bale is set to get a "caution" about his alleged assault on his Mom and sister in London, but only if he admits guilt first. Comedian Russell Brand: "In England, we have such good manners that if someone says something impolite, the police will get involved. Christian Bale, I believe whilst in a restaurant, rolled his eyes at the lighting. That is an offense punishable by five years in prison in the United Kingdom."

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:

Mark Penn, the CEO of Burson-Marsteller, will likely never work in politics again. He's in hot water over his advice to Hillary Clinton. A series of memos obtained by The Atlantic show Penn offering Clinton unsavory advice. (For example: highlighting Barack Obama's childhood abroad as a way of suggesting he was too foreign to be president.) But the fallen flack has a promising career as consigliere to tech CEOs, based on his advice to Bill Gates: "Being human is overrated."

Former Hillary Clinton spokeshipster Howard Wolfson says Hillary Clinton totally would be president right now if the John Edwards scandal had gone public last year. "I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee," he told ABC. And furthermore: Wolfson says the Clintons knew the story but didn't push it. "Any of the campaigns that would have tried to push that would have been burned by it." Ha. Bullshit. If they had the story, they would've planted it without getting their hands dirty. And furthermore, Edwards would've had to drop out right before Iowa, and not after. And furthermore, their Iowa ground game sucked and Obama's didn't. And frankly their campaign didn't kick into gear until they were losing and started taking shit seriously; being the frontrunner was a liability. But all that aside, playing alternative history is totally fun! So let's all pretend the Edwards revelations broke close enough to the Iowa caucus to force Edwards to drop out but not so far from them that everyone had already forgotten or stopped caring. What would our world look like now?

So Harvey Weinstein isn't exactly the most generous mogul in town. But he gives plenty to political candidates, don't ya know? He was one of Hillary Clinton's most outspoken supporters during her ill-fated run for the White House, and even threatened to disrupt the primary when Democratic party officials didn't pursue a revote in Florida and Michigan. But it wasn't just Harvey who was so generous with Hill. His elderly mother, Miriam—for whom his first film company was named—handed over a total of $4,600 to Hillary in late 2007. As far as we can tell, it was the first time that the 82-year-old grandmother has ever donated to a presidential candidate. No doubt it was Hill's ability to connect with older women—and not Harvey's checkbook—that was responsible for the contribution.

Hillary Clinton wants—no, needs—some recognition for so valiantly and gloriously melting down and losing a nomination that a few short months ago she was supposed to walk away with without breaking a sweat. Remember how proud we all were as she became increasingly desperate, holding the Democratic Party hostage like Brett Favre, as her husband began making incomprehensible racial gaffes and she quaffed bourbon and divorced herself from reality? Yes. So. Let's relive the magic of Hillary '08 at the Democratic National Convention in Denver! The Clinton Camp (they still have a camp!) is demanding that Hillary's name be placed into nomination so that she can rack up one more in her growing list of symbolic defeats. (Of course this remains a highly unlikely possibility, so it's actually irresponsible of ABC to run with it like it's news and irresponsible of us to play along with their stupid game. But hey! Still the silly season.) [ABC]

Did you miss the party that Michael Bloomberg organized for Hillary Clinton last night at Gracie Mansion? Then you missed your chance to mingle with Chevy Chase or sing along with a performance of "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet." Uh oh. [NYO]

This week's issue of Newsweek features a profile of Steve Rattner, the financier who may have earned plenty of success in the world of high finance (No. 2 at Lazard, founder of the Quadrangle Group, money manager for Mike Bloomberg), but has thus far been unable to land his dream job: running a top Wall Street bank or a Washington cabinet position. (He's 0 for 3, having backed Gore, Kerry and Hillary Clinton.) Even Henry Kravis takes a subtle dig at the journalist-turned-banker: "Ask the average guy if he knows or has heard of Bob [Rubin], chances are he has. But not Rattner." Oh, cheer up, Steve! You're still the only former Times reporter in history who ever got to stamp his initials on a $20 million jet.

"The gathering was hosted by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and attended by Ellen Malcolm, founder of Emily's List... Rep. Ellen Tauscher... and Hilary Rosen... who's now political director of the Huffington Post." [Post]

The best that can ever be said of the Clinton consultants turned pundits is that they're right except for all the times they're wrong. That's certainly the case with Dick Morris, who previously said a conniving Hillary had the nomination in the bag, then adopted an air of insider omniscience in setting everyone right as to Obama's sure-thing triumph. As for the other chubby triangulator on speed-dial, Mark Penn is wrong even when he's right, and he's hardly ever that. As Hillary's chief political strategist, he thought using the word "cocaine" repeatedly on television by way of denying his camp was trying to portray Obama as a cokehead was subliminally savvy. It was not. He thought focusing on all the big states and ignoring the little ones with caucuses meant an easy glide to the Denver convention. It did not. He thought his own party's primaries allotted state delegates in a winner-take-all-fashion. Alas, they did not. Now Penn's written a piece for Politico in which he claims to have spotted the decisive voter bloc for the '08 showdown. Even if he's right, broadly speaking, he fucks his own thesis into demographic incoherence by sentence two.

When Katie Couric read a page from her "notebook" back in June, highlighting sexist media coverage of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, we wondered if maybe she wasn't also talking about herself. Couric was, after all, facing record-low ratings, and her bosses said sexism was partly responsible for viewer apathy. Well, Couric put to rest any doubts she identifies with Clinton in an interview with Haaretz newspaper in Israel, where she is traveling on vacation. In it, she argues that sexism is more common than racism in America, and that she has felt its effects — just like Hillary:

Have you seen Hillary Clinton's new 'do? Yes, she's sporting a rather unattractive new haircut these days, which a news-starved MSNBC was more than happy to cover in a lengthy segment. (And with commentary from political pundits no less.) "Clinton's hair is apparently shorter than it used to be and she shifted her part from the left side to the right side." The disturbing images after the jump.

"After finishing his speech to a roomful of New York donors at the Grand Hyatt without any mention of helping Clinton with her debt, reporters ran over to Obama's spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who was already spinning hard that Obama's failure to make a pitch was no big deal. Then the music stopped and Obama, very awkwardly, started speaking again." [Observer]

Is your brand in crisis? You may need the expert help of mega-PR firm Burson-Marsteller! The firm is run by public relations expert Mark Penn, who recently did a fantastic job selling Hillary Clinton to the nation until he had to quit as her top advisor because his firm met with the Colombian government to represent them on an issue the Clinton campaign had taken the opposite view of. Whoops! Then Hillary lost. So hey, Mark Penn understands why maybe you wouldn't turn to him to manage whatever PR disaster you're undergoing. Which is why he's brought on another superstar from the world of politics: Karen Hughes!

Hillary Clinton aide Howard Wolfson is now a regular contributor to Fox News, but in his heart of hearts, he'd like to be a contributing editor at Spin. As we've mentioned, he regularly sends out indie-heavy playlists of what he's listening to to friends, fellow flacks, and journalists. And we finally found his 2004 end-of-year list! Complete with blurbs! Wolfson's top ten, and other assored bits of music criticism from the be-sweatered communications consultant, after the jump.

Howard Wolfson, the Hillary Clinton surrogate whose many television appearances were second in embarrassment only to Terry McAuliffe's, has a new job! The former communications director is taking his message of Cosby sweater-inspired victory to Fox News, where they continue to find new and inventive ways of hating the Clintons, like by parading their vanquished aides before the nation. Clinton's campaign came to believe that Fox was more fair to her during the primary campaign, mostly because they never tired of beating up on Obama and his pastor or whatever. Wolfson, recently named "the most charmless human being on the planet," is excited to bring his tireless advocacy for failure to the fair and balanced network.

Looking to spend some quality face time with Barack Obama? Got some spare cash sitting around? Good news: Barack will be spending the next couple of days in New York and he'd love your help in filling up his campaign war chest! After the jump, details on where the Democratic nominee will be raising funds in Manhattan, and exactly how much loot you'll be able to stuff into his pockets at the events if you so desire.