National:

• President Barack Obama will lay a wreath and say some veteran-y things in Korea. Then he’ll take his pet bald eagle out for bimbimbap. |Washington Post|
• George W. Bush is a successful author. Now the sun will begin revolving around the earth. |WSJ|
• Despite their mutual appreciation for golf, John Boehner and Barack Obama hate each other so bad. The next two years are going to suck, so bad. |WSJ|

• Republican TeaPartista Michele Bachmann is giving up her bid for the #4 position in the House leadership, because you all like Jeb Hensarling better anyway, and nobody understands her advanced ideas, and fuck all of you people. |CBS|

• Oakland, California city councilwoman Jean Quan became the first Asian-American woman to run a major city. At least the Californians appreciate women leaders. |Daily Caller|

• Remember that hypocritical, gay-hating Miss California Carrie Prejean–the one with all the homemade sex vids and nip slip pixs and prissy hissy fits, who aligned herself with conservatives? Well, she’s pregnant now. The wrong people always spawn. |Fox|
• Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank doesn’t like it when Bill O’Reilly talks about beheading him. It’s not nice. |Daily Caller|

• A new report by a Pentagon group says gays could serve in war with minimal risk of incident. Doesn’t someone come out with study results like this every week, or does it just seem that way? |Washington Post|

Metro:

• City officials have absolutely no idea how to save money, so they’re turning to the citizenry. So far, about 2,000 people have recommended ideas; more than half of the responses say, “quit buying stupid shit.” Another 10% say, “go to the store on double-coupon day.” |NYC twitter|

• Don’t you try to tell Charlie the teacup terrier he has to move out, stupid condo board. Charlie’s got lawyers, and they’ll fight you and win. |NY Times|

• “If anybody can find somebody worse than Joel Klein, it’s Michael Bloomberg … I don’t know much about this woman, but I bet she’s going to be awful.” A teacher in Queens responds to the mayor’s choice for chancellor of the schools. |Queens Courier|

• You’re never going to spend that $35,000 stashed in your freezer, collecting frost. Maybe you should give it to the Medgar Evers College Preparatory School marching band, so they can go to Atlanta to compete in a championship. Oh wait, that’s just $3 in your freezer? Well, give it to the band anyway. |Team Tish|

• On his 35th birthday, Michael Rodgers promised to run 35 races in a year to benefit charity, and he’s been doing it. When you’re 35, you should run 35 races and also run for president. |Queens Examiner|

Last week, America found itself subjected to an unrelenting parade of righteous sanctimony, staggering idiocy and unabashed martyrdom in the form of Carrie Prejean’s dumb book publicity tour. Now this week it’s Sarah Palin turn, and you just know that Trixie Klondyke, Alaskan Warrior Princess will not stand for some upstart blonde prolific sex tape-maker from California trying to take away her crown as the Golden Twat of modern American conservatism. Carrie, consider yourself on notice…It is on!

Yes, Rootin’ Tootin’ Sarah will be EVERYWHERE this week, saying maverick-y things in that oh-so-familiar folksy word soup fashion that has become her trademark. Today she’ll be on Oprah…tomorrow she’ll be on Good Morning America, Nightline and World News Tonight…Wednesday she’ll be on GMA again as well as Hannity and Friday she’ll be on 20/20. Sadly, it doesn’t look as though she’ll be making a Letterman appearance.

Meanwhile, the early returns are rolling in and the vast majority of people who’ve actually seen Palin’s opus seem to agree that yes, it is every bit the Titanic dungheap of shitteousness everyone expected it to be, filled with outright lies, bitchy whining, moral indignation and general dumbassery. The only person who seems to like it is Rush Limbaugh, who called it “one of the most substantive policy books I’ve read.” That probably says it all, no?

Stay tuned to ANIMAL as we will be breathlessly mocking and ridiculing Palin’s traveling clown circus throughout the week.

Image via the amazing Zina Saunders

Remember last year during the campaign when self-proclaimed common man John McCain couldn’t remember how many houses he owned? Well, that number turned out to be seven.

And now it appears that self-proclaimed Christian Carrie Prejean has even more sex tapes floating around, eight in total, which means that Carrie Prejean has more sex tapes than John McCain has houses. Impressive! |NY Daily News via Daily Intel|

Ha! The imbecilic crazy-train that is Carrie Prejean continues to roll onward toward a steep cliff…fresh from quitting on Larry King mid-interview, the new Golden Twat of American Conservatism has abruptly canceled a speaking engagement scheduled for this afternoon in Washington D.C., where she was supposed to whine to a group of Republican congressmen and women about her ongoing, Christ-like persecution at the hands of meanie liberals. That’s so Palin! Soon Carrie’s only public utterings will come via Facebook and Twitter, just like her maverick-y hero. |TMZ|

Disgraced pageant broad turned systematically persecuted champion of conservatism Carrie Prejean is still out there promoting her dumb book about how liberals want to destroy her because she’s hot and loves Jesus, just like Sarah Palin, and tonight she just lost it completely live on national television.

She made an appearance on Larry King Live where King, the most noted softball interviewer in the history of journalism, managed to push poor little Carrie’s red button, prompting her to abort (See what I did there?) the interview live on national television. Watch as the old Lizard King himself, seemingly inspired to channel his inner Mike Wallace by his fiery red suspenders, “grills” Prejean until she just can’t take it anymore.

Tonight’s incident follows Prejean’s last minute cancellation of a prior scheduled appearance on LKL because she was too hungover to go on the air, so I guess it’s time to ask, WHY DOES CARRIE PREJEAN HATE OLD PEOPLE?!

UPDATE: TMZ has some GREAT audio from the guy she sent the “sex tape” to. He claims she was actually 20 when she sent it, not 17 as she has claimed for some time. Oh and he gave them pictures he took at a weekend “sex romp” in San Diego as well. This was a dude she met on Myspace, no less.

Oh good lord…Carrie Prejean was on The View today braying on and on and on about her sex tape and how she’s a victim and how liberals hate people like her and Sarah Palin merely because they’re conservative women. Click through to watch if you’d like to loathe her even more than you already do.

Tonight disgraced pageant broad Carrie Prejean, the most wind-maligned human in the history of the universe, was on Sean Hannity’s show, as she often is, to discuss some horrible book she’s “written” about her ascension into martyrdom that’s hitting the bookstores.

Naturally, Hannity, the staunch defender of all that is virtuous and morally pure in Americaland, immediately asked the synthetically-enhanced Nordic cum-dumpster sitting across from him about the sex tape she stars in that TMZ is rumored to have in its possession, and the cum-dumpster went on to explain that JUST ONE TIME, when she was even sweeter and younger and innocenter than she is now, A LONG TIME AGO, Carrie was in love, WITH A BOY, and for him she made a nice naked video of herself, WHEN NO OTHER HUMANS WERE AROUND, it was probably just her in a room with an engorged German shepherd, a crucifix and an oblong, bulbous zucchini, and then she sent the video to this man she thought she loved, because she was young and impossibly stupid, UNLIKE NOW, and he betrayed her, LIKE JUDAS, by selling this totally innocent, painfully Christian naked video to a sleazy website.

So now Carrie has been victimized by the liberals, once again, just like when it was revealed that she’d accidentally posed nude and then had her trust betrayed by sleazy photographers, but she’s now learned from her mistakes and wants to be a role model for your children, but the aforementioned mean ole liberals keep calling her a hypocrite. However, luckily for Carrie, it’s all okay, because Sean Hannity gets her, and thus Jesus forgives her for all of her sins and she’ll surely spend eternity in heaven, unlike the Godless sodomites of the world. The end.

Well here’s a little news item that confirms something we’ve all pretty much already known: pageants are all about the hulking, mammoth titties baby! OH YEAH! Why else would the shameless flesh peddlers who run the Miss California pageant pay $5,200, which they’re now demanding repayment of, for Carrie Prejean to go out and get the ole SoCal double stack? Couldn’t that money have been better spent by hiring a tutor to try to beat the staggering stupidity out of her? |Daily News|

Each week, ANIMAL will rank the world’s most despicable, deplorable, and undesirable human beings walking the earth, making the news. Behold: Evil Empirical.

Miss California
Still stinging from her it’s-not-okay-to-be-gay statement that cost her the Miss USA crown, Carrie Prejean, Miss California, has now suggested that some diabolical Sodomites “opposed to her Christian faith” are the ones responsible for leaking her teenage booby photos to the internet. Of course, Prejean has become the poster girl for Fox News, who are embracing her as their pretty-faced right wing martyrdom. But Fox can also sympathize with her plight — she’s not alone in being seduced by wanton desires. Wonder if she owns a loofa?

Sam Tremble
The “Hipster Snitcher” is almost as deplorable a human being as poor little Kari Ferrell due to his shameless self-promotion on the part of his band, “The Hermit Thrushes.” Really? You made a citizen’s arrest? You duped her right back! Right on, Sam! You’re a fucking hero. Now go back to your pantsless drumming and finding new inventive ways for alt weeklies to write about your shitty little band.

Oprah
Has there ever been a more vulgar display of power than Oprah’s KFC online promotion? It’s scary to think that Oprah can almost blow up the internet, cause riots in the streets, and eliminate half the country’s grilled chicken supply with one singular statement on her show. This woman will one day start a war. She’s a menace that must be stopped before she Jim Jones’ the whole country.

Drew Peterson
Every one was fascinated by this fat little old man who would seemingly charm the pants off of impressionable young women with remarkable ease. Then they’d go missing and he’d shrug his shoulders and feign sympathy, even though everyone who watched him knew that he was, you know, murdering them. Now, there are finally charges brought against him and maybe the media will think a little more discreetly the next time they want to put him on camera.

Most Evil: Elizabeth Edwards
Yes, we know, lady — your smiling, handsome Senator husband cheated on you while you had cancer and it’s sad and unseemly and a total punch-in-the-gut. But instead of keeping it to yourself and moving on with your life for the sake of your family, you had to go on Oprah to let the lady lemmings give you a round of applause. You really want to have a new life and begin the healing process? Here’s a hint: STOP FUCKING TALKING ABOUT IT.