Gee whiz, not even plague-ridden rodents phase BARACK OBAMA! It’s true: Once upon a time young Barry Obama was talking on the telephone — as Chicago lawyers often do — when quite out of nowhere a grimy rat scurried across the floor and climbed up his leg. TONY REZKO had threatened to unleash the rats if the rent was ever late, but Barry thought he was just joshing and so did Barry’s law partner BILL AYERS, who feared all species of vermin and instinctively jumped out the window. But Obama? Obama was cool as a cucumber, and offered the rat a smoke … MORE »

Mark Sanford reviewed Ayn Rand (like as a human?) for Newsweek. This is a thing that happened! Anyway, Mark Sanford really did not think this whole thing out, publishing his close reading masterwork in Newsweek, as this essay has all the makings of a winner of The Ayn Rand Institute’s annual 8th to 10th grade Anthem essay contest! Grand prize = $85,000, and plus your name and high school gets posted on the Ayn Rand fansite, which will become hilarious for your friends by 11th grade at the very latest. Anyway, see if you can tell which conjectures came from Mark Sanford’s Newsweek essay and which came from the 2009 Anthem contest winner from “Mariemont High School, Cincinnati, OH, USA.” As always, grand prize is an “iPhone,” except the “i” is capitalized and shit because RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL SDLFJSLDK. MORE »

• MARK SANFORD IS MOST FAMOUS PERSON IN SOUTH AMERICA: Here’s a fun story about how embarrassing South Carolina is, on a global scale: “He was in Peru, on a train from Cusco to Machu Picchu, when he and his wife began chatting with another couple. Where, Harpootlian asked, are you from? Rio, came the response, and you? South Carolina, Harpootlian replied. Mark Sanford! the couple exclaimed. Argentina!” [LA Times]

Mark Sanford was involved in a SENSATIONAL high-speed chase the other day in South Carolina, where he has a lucrative freelance governorship gig. The driver of Sanford’s car was going 85 mph when he was pulled over by a state trooper, who wanted to know what the deal was with the 85 mph. For such is his job! Mark Sanford’s job is to roll down the passenger-side window, mumble “Mark Sanford” with all the engagement of a tape recorder that had previously recorded someone else mumbling “Mark Sanford,” extend his hand without ever leaving the car, and avoid a speeding ticket. [WILD VIDEO at The State]

While riding bikes with one of his sons, delicate human being Mark Sanford fell and sprained both wrists. Immediately, Sanford publicly blamed the episode on another person, specifically his own child. “[My son] had not yet learned the rules of the road, so to speak, and he turned left and I was stupidly locked in my pedals. So down I went. I was lucky I didn’t break both wrists.” So, smooth move kid. Anyway, what he really wants to talk about is his broken heart, which has been inexorably hemorrhaging into the rapids of a spiritual Rio Panama. His family is also to blame for this. [GreenvilleOnline]

RUE THE DAY WHEN IT WILL BE TRANSLATED INTO SPANISH. Jenny Sanford did not already have a book deal, somehow, but it is fine, because now she does! Her “inspirational memoir” will be released in May 2010. It is tentatively titled The Book of Job. [CNN]

Mark Sanford has been thinking awhile about this whole Joe Wilson thing, which really, if you think about it, makes sense to think about in terms of Sanford’s extramarital affair. (Lows by any other name!) Here is Sanford, giving some interview in South Carolina and just owning sixth grade’s most savvy rhetorical move: “The guy apologized, and then you can have a bunch of other people come back and say, ‘We want you to apologize again and again and again.’” Sympathy by the transitive property! There’s more: MORE »

Hey remember Mark Sanford’s affair? Well, Mark Sanford certainly does, and he would like to take this opportunity to implore you to just GET OVER IT. In fact, he will be publicly reminding everyone of his own Argentinian extramarital sparkin’ thing until America decides to just grow up and forget it already. But you know, while we’re on the subject of Mark Sanford, Mark Sanford has a few ideas about some helpful metaphors everyone can use in dealing with this whole “Mark Sanford situation”:  “Everybody is assigned their own secret-agent mission in life. And at times the tricky part, the hard part, is finding out what that secret-agent mission is. Some of us do it early, some of us do it later in life.” MORE »

Mark Sanford has admitted to a lot of sketchy behavior and pretty much constant lies about everything, and he is a weeping emo douche, but there’s one thing Mark Sanford wants you to know: HE DID NOT START THE RUMOR THAT HIS HATED RIVAL, LT. GOV. ANDRE BAUER, IS A BIG FAG. Somebody else must’ve done that. Still, “Andre Bauer” is such a gay name we don’t really need Mark Sanford to clue in the blogs, about that. [Palmetto Scoop]

South Carolina is just full of filthy sex people performing terrible acts of sex upon one another. Take Kristin Maguire, who became “of interest” last week after it was discovered that in between chairing the state board of education and homeschooling her own four children (?), she was in the habit of publishing her loosely fictionalized erotic goings-on on certain sexy parts of the Internet. Ha, oh and then there was that time she flashed Mark Sanford’s chief of staff whilst atop the hilariously gratuitous location of Jenny Sanford’s desk. (N.B.: Hi, yes, South Carolina: it is possible to hook-up without doing so at the expense of Jenny Sanford.) MORE »

Definitely not gay at all South Carolina Lieutenant Governor André Bauer, who has pledged not to run for governor if sex-having Gov. Mark Sanford resigns, so as to avoid any trace of string-pulling, has added some Modifications to this pledge. He has called on Sanford to resign IMMEDIATELY, but if he hasn’t done so within a month, then he will allow himself to run for governor. André Bauer is now praying to his gay French god (Howard Dean?) that Sanford resigns in 32 days, in which case there will be no evidence whatsoever of string-pulling or back-room deals. Not that we have any idea what this gaysack could offer Mark Sanford in exchange for a timely resignation. Anyway. [The State]