Tina Fey hosted the first post-strike SNL this weekend. We didn't watch, obv, but we shall risk incurring the wrath of Alex Balk by mentioning Fey's uncharacteristically sincere endorsement of Hillary Clinton, one of the very few convincing ones to be found in the national media of late (we just caught it online, the way everyone else will). Fey, SNL's first female head writer, may convince a few of those Barack-loving youngs to support America's potential first female president. (SNL's first black head writer could not be reached for comment, because that'll be the day.) Clip after the jump!

Tracy Sefl, the "informal conduit between the Clinton campaign and Matt Drudge," didn't have anything to do with the wacky Obama-in-dress picture that ended up embarrassing the Clinton campaign on Drudge this morning. [The Atlantic, Earlier]

A photo of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama wearing sort of an apron-looking thing and a funny turban? A Hillary Clinton staffer asks (according to Drudge): "Wouldn't we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?" Uh, sure. Sure we would. The photo, from 2006, shows Obama "fitted as a Somali Elder, during his visit to Wajir, a rural area in northeastern Kenya." It was sent around by Clinton's press office (once again, according to Drudge) this weekend, in an apparent attempt to prove that the Illinois Senator is a Muslim terrorist who wears a dress. Mischievous Matt Drudge gave the story an amusing anti-Clinton spin. Because his relationship with her is complicated.

Did you watch the Clinton/Obama debate last night? We didn't! But apparently it went like this: Hillary was all "Obama is a plagiarist hope you can Xerox lol" and the crowd sorta booed but the media decided it was the best zinger ever and Obama was ok but no zingers at all! And Hillary had a rousing and inspiring closing speech that she totally plagiarized from "Lonesome" John Edwards as the following YouTube clip clearly shows.

George Clooney has declared himself the Hillary Clinton of the Oscars in one of the smartest swipes ever taken at the Democratic presidential candidate. Clooney is a huge, huge Barack Obama fan, having called him "the best candidate I've ever seen" and basically declaring he should be president from now until eternity. And he recently got a huge platform to bolster the candidate as the cover boy on the Mar. 3 issue of Time, which included a Sam Jones photo spread and a feature article from Joel Stein, who had Clooney over for dinner. But of course Time doesn't care much about movie megastar Clooney's political punditry, so he had to sneak in his attack as part of an roundup of his Oscar picks, in which he declared he will lose his shot at the Best Actor Oscar, just like a certain loser politician will lose her shot at Best Democrat In A Leading Role. Clooney's exact words, plus bonus video of the actor at Stein's house, after the jump.

"Would the real Hillary in a private moment go for an Oliveburger or a Boca Burger?" Slate wants to know. Um, who cares? We always assumed she devoured venison and slammed gin in her campaign-bunker. But seriously, folks, there is an entire article devoted to Hil's eating habits (or speculation thereof): "And so, the question remains: How could the lover of the lusty Oliveburger ever settle for a Boca Burger?" (Next week: we check in with Hil's gynecologist!)

Ah, no one says it like Tim Gunn, revered style swami and champion of dandy diplomacy, who can tell you everything you need to know about the dumpy hunchbackwear you've got on with nothing more than a fist pressed to his lips and a deep furrowing of his Sharpei-like brow. If anyone can get away with skewering the sartorial challenges facing our past and present leaders, it is he. Appearing on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Gun was utterly unwowed by what was going on below President Bush's ankles: Taken separately, a pair of black Crocs and Air Force One socks might work, but there was virtually no excuse for wearing the two together (short of perhaps currying favor with the German Chancellor at the next G7 Summit).

Style expert Tim Gunn was on Late Night with Conan O'Brien last night and managed to blurt out that he thinks Hillary Clinton is confused about her gender. She appears mannish, he said, in her suits that look like Kevlar. Though he loves how Nancy Pelosi dresses, and therefore encourages her to run for president. Ack, Timmy. This unseemliness is all compounded by the fact that avowed redneck comedian Larry the Cable Guy was sitting next to Tim the whole time. At one point he even chimed in, suggesting that the fashion maven wears a "pin wheel hat and nipple clamps" for fun. Then Tim touched him. Two worlds that should never collide just did. Uncomfortably. Video after the jump.

Marketwatch media person (and frequent target of Gawker ridicule) Jon Friedman actually wrote a thought that is sorta original and correct and interesting! According to him, MSNBC's ratings may suck, but they "stand out in one underappreciated category: embarrassing, mealy-mouthed apologies." He refers to David Shuster's suspension for his remarks about Chelsea Clinton (ably dissected down to the very last gruesome detail by Rachel Sklar here), which, along with Chris Matthews' half-hearted and partially reversed apology for being insane about Hillary, has MSNBC holding the early lead in the "apologizing to the Clintons" race. Of course, in the overall apology race, Fox did force anchor John Gibson to apologize for laughing it up at the death of Heath Ledger. But he didn't really mean it so that doesn't count. [Marketwatch]

[Senator Hillary Clinton on her campaign plane in Ohio yesterday; image via AP]

Rage-filled party-animal and man who is uncomfortable with powerful women Chris Matthews is (kinda justifiably!) pissed off that the Hillary Clinton campaign has been bugging his network, MSNBC, about how a couple of their anchors have said borderline misogynistic things about Senator Clinton. They have every right to bitch, but actually calling up GE-owned NBC? Actually asking that correspondent David Shuster be fired? For a sitting Senator who wishes to be President, that is not really kosher. As he usually does, Matthews went off in stronger langugage on his MSNBC colleague Joe Scarborough's morning show than he does on his own program. He seems to maybe regret his half-assed apology! Details of his rant below:

Atlantic editor Josh Green was writing a mildly unfavorable GQ piece about the Clintons until the Clintons said they'd pull Bill from the mag's cover if it ever ran. So they killed it. (For real this time, not like that old Vanity Fair rumor.) And Green took it to The Atlantic. The story is about how ousted campaign manager Patti Solis-Doyle didn't so much "run" the campaign as just act like a surrogate ego to Senator Clinton herself, and that Solis-Doyle continued to be allowed to fuck up Clinton's campaign primarily because of her slavish loyalty, and not for any political skill she might possess. The story is good! But now it's in the unread Atlantic. And the story's author is on the unwatched TUCKER. Clip below!

[Ousted campaign manager Patti] Solis Doyle recently returned home after two months on the road to find a family accustomed to her absence, she told colleagues. When her 6-year-old son cried out one night recently, he rebuffed his mom, saying, 'I want Daddy.' Ms. Solis Doyle flew out of the room in tears and told her husband: 'Joey doesn't want me. S- this campaign, I'm quitting.'

Ladies and gentlemen, the single best amateur campaign ad of the 2008 race. Hillary4U&Me features the youth of today joining together to support our favorite dynastic presidential hopeful... in song! The song, which sounds vaguely like an off-key Casio demo version of the Jacksons' "ABC", is inspiring. The video is cutting-edge. The whole enterprise is so awesomely sincere that we were convinced it had to be a parody until we learned that it was composed and performed by a Silicon Valley CEO and "accomplished hobbyist musician." Watch the whole video, after the jump!

[Drudge]

The Valley, despite the pretensions of some tech bloggers, has no influence on national politics. Candidates swing by, mutter "network neutrality" and other shibboleths, collect buckets of cash, and return to Washington richer but otherwise unchanged. This sad reality explains why we indulge ourselves in fantasies that we're run by aliens or robots. Those are politicians we could actually relate to. That's right: If Ron Paul supporters believed Obama was a Borg drone, they'd be more likely to vote for him.

Hill's Drudge envoy: still earning every dime of that paycheck. [Crooks and Liars]

Sometimes it takes a foreign-language newspaper to print the truth of which the mainstream U.S. media is so very afraid. [Manhattan Offender]

David Schuster, an NBC News correspondent whom no one on Earth had ever cared about before today, has just been suspended for announcing that it was "weird" how the Clintons "pimped out Chelsea" when they made her call all those superdelegates and those ladies from The View. Chris Matthews, Tucker Carlson, and even lovable old Pat Robertson will still appear on the network regularly. [Media Matters]