As he is a Times political reporter, we’ve probably written (or thought) a number of nasty things about Mark Leibovich. We’re past all that now, because he’s written an absolutely beautiful Katherine Harris profile. Here’s but a sampling:

Once Ms. Harris wins her race for a Senate seat, she says, she plans to travel everywhere with a guide dog.

Yeah, that’s right. Katherine Harris — who is not, 1908 Sears & Roebuck catalog wardrobe aside, actually blind — will be using a seeing-eye dog. Until she fires it in a fit of pique and it starts giving anonymous quotes trashing her to Dan Balz. Also, Harris already works in the Capitol. Why wait until she’s on the other end of the building before getting a dog? Is the Senate side just harder to find your way around in?

More — so, so much more — after the jump.

“She has absolutely no chance of winning,” said former Representative Joe Scarborough, a Pensacola Republican who was courted strongly by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to oppose Ms. Harris but declined. Mr. Scarborough, the host of “Scarborough Country” on MSNBC, said Ms. Harris “seems to be detached from reality these days.”

This is worrying. Once Joe Scarborough says you’re “detached from reality,” you are a lost cause. It’s like Chris Matthews saying you’re a bit of a blowhard. Joe, have you, like everyone else, forgotten the good times?

On Memorial Day, Ms. Harris rode in a parade and visited two Veterans of Foreign Wars halls and one American Legion post, and was not audibly jeered or heckled by anyone, a fact that surprises even her, “based on the press I get.”

You hear that, liberal media? She was NOT AUDIBLY JEERED. Next stop: VICTORY!

But she cited her own “internal polls,” which she said showed that she could get 53 percent of the vote “if my base turns out.”

Hey, Katy, you “turn out” your “base,” you’ll get plenty more than 53 percent. (Ok, sorry, but this article is just way too intense and kind of sad for us to come up with decent double entendres. Every word in it already reads like one!)

She will care for the dog for 18 months, spending nearly all her waking hours with it. “You can’t let them sleep in bed with you,” Ms. Harris said. “Which is going to be harder on me than the dog.”

SEE???

When a supporter in a Venice veterans hall said he once witnessed Ms. Harris leave her vehicle to escort a turtle across a highway, she became gravely serious.

“All of my life I have stopped for turtles,” she said firmly, even defensively, as if someone had challenged her commitment to turtle safety.

Is all of Florida on hallucinogens? Seriously? We know parts of it are swampy, but is the entire state in some sort of malaria-induced fever dream or just the American Legion and VFW halls?

And then commenced another unforgettable moment, Katherine Harris, arms over her head, dancing to “Y.M.C.A.”

Mr. Leibovich, you’re a high-powered Times journalists. You cover politics. You probably have a fancy smart-phone, right? And that phone probably has a camera. What we’re getting at is, for the love of god, send us that picture. Because we know you took it.

Christ. After that, we need a cigarette.

Senate Contender in Florida Presses On [NYT]

Perhaps in response to the compelling results of a recent Wonkette poll, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said this to the New York Times:

“I hear them say on TV that I’ve had face-lifts,” said Ms. Pelosi, 66, who added that she had never had one. “I heard one woman say I’ve had a face-lift, but it looks terrible.”

She shook her head and said, “Did you ever think that those two things cancel themselves out?”

Also, note her careful wording: no facelifts. But we asked about an eyelid lift.

Additional commentary, including a post-surgery sighting of Pelosi, after the jump.

Also in the same article, Pelosi’s fellow Congressional Catfight combatant — Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) — whips out the claws: “Her public speaking style is not good.”

Ouch. With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans?

The Times seems to agree with Frank’s assessment:

Ms. Pelosi can struggle at times to give the air of the gravitas that powerful women like Hillary Rodham Clinton and Condoleezza Rice do, both friends and adversaries say. She can appear tentative and overscripted in interviews, with a tight smile and large, expressive eyes than can leave an impression of nervousness.

A “tight” smile, and “large” eyes? Does Mark Leibovich share our doubts about Pelosi’s denial of plastic surgery?

If so, who can blame him? A San Francisco-based reader offers this Bay Area sighting of Pelosi:

I live about eight blocks from Nancy Pelosi in SF and a bit over a year ago, I was buying a sandwich at the corner market… I saw a large government SUV outside, and I saw this vaguely familiar person who looked like a cross between the Joker and my Congresswoman, followed closely by an assistant. I quickly realized that Nancy had recently had a rather severe face lift.

So if she did more recently have her eyes done, I’d be surprised. Because you could have gently set a quarter on that face and it still would have bounced ten feet up in the air.

Finally, we enjoyed this little bit of color in Leibovich’s piece:

Ms. Pelosi said she slept little, stole exercise by dashing through airports and subsisted many days on Ghirardelli chocolates (“less than 10” a day) and pistachio nuts (which she shells with her teeth).

“I had a hamburger last night and it was my breakfast, lunch and dinner,” she said last week. “And I had these strange things. I realized they were French fries.” She made quick spiraling gestures with her fingers to show what they looked like.

It was apparent that she was not familiar with curly fries.

Not familiar with the curly version of freedom fries? How un-American!

The Republicans don’t need to demonize Pelosi. She’s doing a fine job of that all by herself, thank you very much.

Talk of Pelosi as Speaker Delights Both Parties [NYT]

Earlier: Extreme Makeover: Nancy Pelosi?
Extreme Makeover, Nancy Pelosi: Poll Results