How did we miss this? The New Republic gave a blog to Howard Wolfson! Wolfson is Hillary Clinton's reviled old flack. He's known for his terrible sweaters, terrible NPR-schmindie taste in white people music, and for being a big loser like everyone else who is blamed for the mismanaged Clinton campaign. TNR editor (and big pussy loser, JUST LIKE HOWARD WOLFSON) Franklin Foer says: "The Flack aims to pull back the curtain on the dark art of the political operative. As Howard dishes out his punditry, he'll try to explain how the likes of Axelrod and Schmidt might work through their calculations." Yes, he'll pull back the curtain and then spew patent nonsense about what we can all plainly see behind this curtain. Then he will cry and listen to The Mountain Goats. [The Flack/TNR]

Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina (née Sneed) (thanks Wikipedia!) used to be the most powerful woman in business, back when she was running HP. She ran HP into the ground, btw, forcing a deadly merger with Compaq, laying off 7,000 people, losing market share to Dell and IBM, and finally being forced out by the board. She received a ridiculous $21 million cash severance payment (breaking the company's own severance cap) and she also somehow received a reputation as someone to be taken seriously in matters of business. Now her job is to convince people that John McCain is business-friendly and knowledgeable about money in general. America! Lloyd Grove interviewed her for Portfolio. This is our favorite quote:

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!

When you're irrelevant and have lost most of your audience and you say something stupid just so people will talk about you, are you pulling a "Rush Limbaugh" or is that an "Anne Coulter"? Anyway, the fat-headed drug addict radio host, Limbaugh, got a look at those Amazonian tribesman the other day and declared, "[T]hese savages are body painted in red and they're trying to shoot the airplane down with bows and arrows." What else did he say?

The controversy over what role (if any) ad bloggers played in ad exec Paul Tilley's suicide is rising up the ranks pretty fast. Earlier today Nina Disesa, the chairman of the New York flagship office of huge ad agency McCann Erickson, left a comment on the Agency Spy blog that calls bloggers hateful failures, and their commenters "losers." This prompted AdScam's George Parker, an actual ad industry guy who takes a backseat to no one in cussing out said industry, to scoff at her, and add that "I happen to think the vast majority of the work that comes out of McCann is shit." The most incredible aspects of this controversy are, 1. The fact that nobody knows why Tilley committed suicide has not prevented a major agency executive from speculating on the cause, and 2. A major agency executive could be so tone-deaf when it comes to the blogosphere. The whole thing is getting nastier by the minute, without any real new information. Disesa's full angry comment is copied below.

The prettiest remaining candidate in the race for the presidency is finally calling it quits. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who has so far won mostly states he's actually lived in, will address the Conservative Political Action Conference at 12:15 today to say "ARE YOU MONSTERS HAPPY NOW?" and then stalk off forever. A nation mourns. [Time]

Terrible news: America's Mayor, Mr. 9/11, twice-divorced opera-loving cross-dressing gay roommate-having Manhattan dandy Rudy Giuliani has dropped out of the race for the presidency after a dismal third place finish in the Florida primary, where he campaigned more and spent more money than any other candidate. He will focus instead on increasing his terrible blood-soaked fortune with speaking gigs and his near-criminal consulting firm. He will endorse insane old man John McCain. [NYT]

The AMPTP is having "informal discussions" with the WGA today. The losers: the people who actually, "secretly" write reality shows and, as always, the people who work in animation. Let the big dogs get their internet residuals! If the staffs of I Love New York and Dora the Explorer want benefits, they should work for real TV! [Yahoo]

Old Man Fred Thompson has withdrawn from the race for the Republican nomination for president. Maybe he heard the writers are settling? Or maybe he just misses those residual checks, who knows. Anyways, welcome back Arthur Branch-era Law & Order reruns! [Reuters]

And Hillary Clinton has not received a single vote in the state of New Hampshire. Meltdown! The media was right! Once they declared her finished, after they anointed her the inevitable next president. And Drudge is running the most flattering photo of a liberal that we've ever seen him run. It's of Barry Obama! [NYT]

"The Zogby/463 Internet Attitudes poll found that 24% of Americans said the Internet could serve as a replacement for a significant other." Poor television! Forty loving years of companionship and it gets dumped for slash fic and never-ending Hentai. [463 Communications]