The latest Politico magazine features a long read by Liza Mundy on "The Secret History of Women in the Senate." While the whole article is surely fascinating, I'd like to focus for a moment on the tantalizing anecdote laid out in its first two paragraphs.

As you may have heard last night, Osama bin Laden is dead, has perished from the earth, is at the bottom of the sea, and is not better off than he was four years ago. The Democrats are trying to pull a Bush on national security, inflating Obama's reputation as a killing machine and portraying Mitt Romney as a bungling softie.

Merrill Lynch's disgraced CEO, John Thain, turns 53 today. Rocker Lenny Kravitz is turning 45. Helena Bonham Carter turns 43. Matt Stone, the co-creator of South Park, is turning 38. Stevie Nicks is 61. Mega-lawyer and Cravath partner Robert D. Joffe is 66. Socialite Annie Churchill is turning 38. Architect Bruce Fowle is 72. Pam Grier (Foxy Brown) turns 60. North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan is turning 56. Comedian "Bobcat" Goldthwait is 47. And Philip Michael Thomas of Miami Vice fame celebrates his 60th birthday today.