Matt Drudge got the five-alarm siren GIF out for "Obama's other race speech" — a lid-blowing, election-rocking video that was supposed to be the right's answer to Mother Jones' secret fundraiser footage of Mitt Romney.

Yesterday morning, the New York Times reported on a super-PAC plan submitted to Joe Ricketts, founder of TD Ameritrade and owner of the Chicago Cubs. Entitled, "The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: The Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good," it proposed a $10 million series of ads tying Obama to Reverend Jeremiah Wright. By early afternoon, Ricketts had abandoned the plan outright.

At a press conference in Jacksonville today, Mitt Romney said he rejected a plan presented by GOP strategists to a Super PAC funded by Cubs-owning billionaire Joe Ricketts aimed at "defeating" President Obama by rehashing his ties to controversial reverend Jeremiah Wright.

The Tucker Carlson-helmed Daily Caller publication has an EXCLUSIVE story today that disrupts the very fabric of our political system and could even alter the trajectory of the cosmos for millions of years to come, killing us all retroactively, too, and so on! THE HEADLINE, PLEASE: "Exclusive: Obama in 2006: I ‘stole' book title ‘Audacity of Hope' from Rev. Wright, ‘my pastor.'" Has your face begun to melt yet, or are your eyes merely exploding?

Another old leak from JournoList, the late off-the-record listserve of liberal pundits, has proven that leftists control all media! Some bloggers were apparently so upset with a 2008 debate that they conspired to write an open letter.

Today, Barack Obama is hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House for what will be a very tense and important diplomatic meeting. Some clowns in Chicago decided to help out!

Presidential elections aren't just about the candidates; they're about all the random crazy people only tangentially related to the candidates and their campaigns, the ones who are hyped into momentary superstardom by political reporters desperate for storylines. Or by the candidates themselves, desperate to deflect attention. The question for these random people is, how to capitalize on this brief and undeserved moment of fame? Joe the Plumber is determined to become a country music star! And he's just one of multitudes. We're here to help, fame whores! After the jump, we tell the incidental stars of this godforsaken election cycle what they should do with their lives after November 4, so that they may not be forgotten:

Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. hasn't had the easiest year: the paper's revenues are declining, hedge funds have taken hold of two seats on the Times Co. board, and he moved out of his Central Park West apartment when he split up with his wife of more than 20 years. Hopefully he'll be in a better mood today when Bill Keller wheels in a giant birthday cake to celebrate Sulzberger's 57th birthday. Others celebrating today: Art work fixture (and Studio Museum chief curator) Thelma Golden is 43. NBA commissioner David Stern is 66. Shubert Organization chairman Gerald Schoenfeld is 84. Bonnie Hunt is 44. Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli is 50. Retired Rangers star Mike Richter is turning 42. And Scott Baio is 47 years old.

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

Various people became quite alarmed when New York said the following at the end of a long article on Barack Obama's campaign and race: "In October, Obama's former pastor, [Rev. Jeremiah] Wright, will publish a new book and hit the road to promote it, an occasion that might well place the topic of Obama's blackness (along with his patriotism and his candor about what he heard in the pews in all those years at Trinity Church) squarely at the center of the national debate." Oh, EXCELLENT.

Obama just went on TV to basically THROW HIS PASTOR UNDER A BUS. A remarkable press conference. One that is maybe a terrible idea? We don't even know anymore. Obama says he complained before that "sound bytes" turned a complicated man into a caricature. This weekend, according to Obama, Reverend Wright became that caricature. Jeez. This is a pretty unequivocal rebuke. Maybe it will please Mickey Kaus. (Though it does seem quite apparent that Obama's doing this because he's fucking pissed and not necessarily just to please the pundit assholes who'll be thrilled that he caved to them.) More later if it warrants it. (First question to Chris Matthews: "did he do enough to separate himself from Reverend Wright?" Ugh.) [AP]

Old Timey conservative columnist, MSNBC contributor, and long-standing "The McLaughlin Group" shrieker Patrick Buchanan wants Senator Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, to "go down on his knees and thank God he is an American." The essay, posted on Buchanan's blog yesterday and entitled "A Brief for Whitey" offers many an insight into the history of black Americans in America.