If you're anything like us, you won't be making any decisions about which Democratic presidential candidate to support until they've run The View's political gauntlet, where they're forced to face a punishing inquisition at the hands of America's most influential panel of couchbound pundits.

Last night, some wily publicist (or someone) got a mention of Radar magazine into the "Conan O'Brien" opening monologue. Conan explains the cover of their new issue, which features a naked Photoshop of Hillary Clinton and a partially nude Rudy Giuliani. He has a prediction for how well that will do on newsstands.

The date: August 21st
The place: 1011 3rd Ave.
Sighted: Saw Bill Clinton yesterday at Dylan's Candy Bar. Dylan was also present and looking rather preppy (duh). Bill was rocking a "Hillary in '08" button on his lapel. Very friendly and taking lots of pictures with the ladies.

Advice from an aide to Hillary Clinton to a former Spitzer aide: "Those pesky press people will sneak up behind you when you least expect it!!! Assume they can always hear you and are always watching you for any type of reaction!!!" [NYS]

Tonight, sandwiched between a rerun of Small Town Gay Bar and Freddie Mercury: Magic Remixed, TV history will be made, as Logo will air the first Democratic Presidential Forum devoted entirely to gay, lesbian, and fag-hag issues, broadcast right here from L.A. A number of frontrunners—brow-beaten from two solid hours of addressing where they stand on such hot-button issues as same-sex marriage, gays in the military, and how and when the U.S. government can justify invading Britney Spears' personal life—plan to celebrate the landmark political event with various soirees held around the city, including a $50-per-Gay viewing party for Hillary Clinton at The Abbey. Still, the invitation (above) offers no guarantees that you or anyone from your L Word viewing circle will be doing raspberry mojito shots off the candidate's suprisingly taut abdominal muscles.

Today's Times notes that Rudy Giuliani, who never met a gay or an abortion he didn't like, except when he was busy trying to kill firemen at Ground Zero, or marrying women who torture dogs, also used to employ Fox News honcho Roger Ailes. "Whether their friendship would ever affect coverage—Fox insists that it has not and will not—it is nonetheless the sort of relationship that other campaigns have noted, though none wanted to speak publicly for fear of offending the station." Sure, they're thick as thieves! But this is the sort of dirty sentence you're going to see more and more as the hellride of this stupid campaign gallops on. What it really means is: "All the campaign folk, including David Axelrod for Obama and Jennifer Hanley or Patti Solis Doyle for Clinton, have barraged us with passages about Ailes from Rudy's stupid book." We can't wait for the real opposition psychos to go into play, though. Soon enough, we'll be deluged with pictures of Bill Clinton and Ron Burkle in Malibu! And that's probably just the beginning.

Remember that Washington Post column about Senator Clinton's cleavage? Writer Robin Givhan has taken a lot of (deserved) criticism for it, but not from her paper's ombudsman, Deborah Howell. "Does this have anything to do with whether Clinton should be president? Not a thing. But do we want to read the column about her cleavage? Yes indeed. It was the most viewed story on the Web site all day." That's okay, Deborah, we don't make distinctions between "good attention" and "bad attention" either. [E&P]

This month's Vogue—the one with not-so-reformed shoplifter Winona Ryder on the cover—profiles Hillary Clinton's traveling chief-of-staff Huma Abedin, in an article that both reveals more and says less about Abedin than the Observer's April profile of her. (The Observer piece, as Vogue helpfully points out, was done without Abedin's cooperation.) Abedin comes across as an incredibly effective, stylish, attractive, über-woman without whom her boss would be lost. (This is accurate!) And also a control freak. There's this telling bit when the writer, Rebecca Johnson, is allowed to look at Abedin's BlackBerry—but only if she agrees not to write who's in it. ("Some of the most famous names in America." Mmkay!) But then, why the non sequitur about John Cusack and Lance Armstrong?

She was talking on the Senate floor about the burdensome cost of higher education. She was wearing a rose-colored blazer over a black top. The neckline sat low on her chest and had a subtle V-shape. The cleavage registered after only a quick glance. No scrunch-faced scrutiny was necessary. There wasn't an unseemly amount of cleavage showing, but there it was. Undeniable.

John Edwards: "I'm white. Down here in my pants? A cock! Let's be honest, who else ya gonna vote for? The black dude? The vagina-haver? I don't THINK SO." [NYO]

Rhymes With Cory: So remember last week when you were all, "Oh no, Emily's going to be gone all week, we're never gonna have enough material?"
BALK BTW: As if it were Friday.
Rhymes With Cory: And I was like, "Nah, we'll be fine." And you said, "We're going to be begging My Cock for posts." And I told you it would never happen?
BALK BTW: Uh huh.
Rhymes With Cory: Is Your Cock awake? Because we have a huge hole.
BALK BTW: Funny enough, we were just IMing. Are we really that desperate?
Rhymes With Cory: I would take a post from Your Balls at this point.
BALK BTW: Okay, lemme see if he's up for it.

You've heard about that Obama girl video, right? Everyone's talking about it. But is it harmless fun or an insult to womanhood's long struggle to be considered equal to men? It's an issue driving a wedge between even the closest of friends—for instance, Huffington Post media critic Rachel Sklar and Star editor-at-large Julia Allison. We've obtained a transcript of a recent (private) clash they had on the subject, and we make it public here because, well, it's very important. Whose side are you on? The answer might surprise you!

Barack Obama "received more donations from employees of investment banks and hedge funds than from any other sector, with Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase among his biggest sources of support." The junior senator from Illinois has thus far pulled $160 grand from Lehman and $100K from Goldman. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, got a mere $47,850 from Morgan Stanley. [FT]

Anna Quindlen: Democrats should take the most winnable election since 1932 and gamble on the chance that Americans who hate blacks will be mollified by a woman at the top of the ticket, and that Americans who don't believe a woman should be in charge will say to themselves, "Well, hey, at least they've got a black guy in there to help out." Great idea. [Newsweek]

Add another politician's name to Google's visitor logs. Presidential candidate and YouTube superstar Ron Paul will address Google employees this Friday, following in the footsteps of fellow candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain.

Did Bill Clinton bug Princess Diana in an attempt to ease Hillary's path to the Senate? Mickey Kaus uses Tina Brown's recent biography of the late princess to connect some dots showing that, well, we're not sure. Nice to know that Bill can still make people crazy though! [Kausfiles]

"The heads of world-class celebrities literally seem to enlarge. Hillary Clinton's, for instance, has grown enormously since she was the mere wife of the governor of Arkansas. It nods when she talks to you like a balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. The years of limelight so inflated the circumference of Jackie O's cranium, it seemed her real face must be concealed by an oversized Halloween mask. If you looked into her eyes, you could see her in there somewhere, screaming." —The Diana Chronicles

In elections, some voters matter; some don't. And Hillary Clinton has just told a powerful Silicon Valley constituency — graduates of India's most prestigious technical school — that they just don't rank an in-person visit. Clinton was supposed to give a keynote speech in Santa Clara today at the Indian institute of Technology 2007 Global Alumni Forum, an event sponsored by Google, Yahoo, Cisco, and Microsoft. But earlier this week, she announced that she'd be MIA. What's she doing instead?Why, she headed off to New Orleans, where she's vying with Barack Obama for African-American votes at the Essence Music Festival. Good luck with that. Sure, Clinton's still going to address the IIT conference — by satellite. That will hardly lessen the sting for the IIT alums, a brainy group which includes venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and Rajeev Motwani, the Stanford professor who advised Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. And it also can't send a good message to sponsors like Google, which surely counted on Clinton's presence to score them points with the IIT engineers who make up a good portion of their staff. (Photo by Getty Images)