Hey, everyone! Lets take a break from laughing at our politicians to, instead, laugh with a former politician. That’s what the folks at Helium Comedy Club in Philadelphia got to do last night as the club got a rather unusual guest for their open mic night; former Senator Arlen Specter. Specter did about eight minutes of jokes, telling “some inside stories about people in public life.” Normally, if you saw a stand up in 2011 trying to do jokes about Bill Clintons’ impeachment hearing, you’d think they were a hack doing incredibly dated material. However, most stand ups didn’t actually get a chance to vote on the damn thing.

Given the polarized nature of politics in this decade, it takes a certain amount of fearlessness to publicly switch teams– or even admit to a past reawakening. While certainly not alone in doing so, former Carter campaign staffer Rep. Michele Bachmann and former conservative gubernatorial candidate Arianna Huffington present a striking contrast in how to let the base down easy with news that you are or may have been playing on the wrong team. Simply put, it’s a lot easier to do when switch parties doesn’t necessarily mean switching beliefs systems– and yes, one is possible without the other.

In order to be a successful politician, a person has to exhibit several specific qualities: charisma, poise, a certain degree of shamelessness. Since a politician won’t be elected unless she knows how to sell herself, it also helps to have a healthy amount of self-esteem. But some politicians take self-regard to a whole new level—and now, writer Darren Garnick has conducted a semi-scientific study that reveals which elected officials can rightfully be named the vainest of them all.

Needless to say, politicians have said far too many stupid things than can be fairly covered in a top ten list. With this in mind, Chris Matthews followed up last week’s list — inspired by Richard Blumenthal and Arlen Specter — with a brand new list, in part comprised of suggestions from viewers.

Say what you will about MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan– last seen wondering aloud about, um, why there are so many Jews on the Supreme Court– but he doesn’t think quite like anyone else on TV does. This morning, Buchanan was on the air to discuss the job Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak was offered by the White House, and the issue made Buchanan concerned about Sestak’s mental health, not that he didn’t “urge him to join the race every time I saw him on Morning Joe,” anyway.

On the heels of the White House Counsel’s memo detailing the administration’s contact (via Bill Clinton) with Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), Sestak spoke out today, going into detail for the first time. Short version: There’s nothing to see here.

With the release of the White House Counsel’s memo on the Joe Sestak controversy, the race is on to keep this story’s heart pumping. Today, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier give the story a good going-over, but former Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey comes along to spoil the fun.

At the end of yesterday’s presidential press conference, Fox News’ asked the final two-part question – and one part was about PA Rep. Joe Sestak and his run in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary against Sen. Arlen Specter. At the time, Pres. Obama said he was not ready to speak about it, but “there will be an official response shortly on the Sestak issue.” Today, the Washington Post and the New York Times are reporting that the White House involved Bill Clinton in the Sestak issue.

If White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod and Congressman Joe Sestak were expecting a hard time from the press about Sestak’s claim that the White House offered him a job to dissuade him from running against Sen. Arlen Specter, they may not have been expecting it on John King, USA. But host John King refused to let either of them off the hook without an answer, asking both to clarify the issue in the interest of public trust. What he got in return was five minutes of non-answers and awkward question evasion.

Before you ask, Chris Matthews did not include any of his own bon mots in this list. Nor did he include any words of wisdom from Sarah Palin. Instead, it would appear Matthews was inspired to make the list following this weeks bumbles, including Blumenthal and Rand Paul, and especially Arlen Specter’s loss in Pennsylvania, which Matthews attributed to Specter admitting he was merely switching parties in order to win. That statement came in at number ten on Matthews’ list. There’s plenty more.

Conservatives have been taking a victory lap, of sorts, in honor of Rand Paul‘s win in Kentucky on Tuesday, and last night Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann appeared on Hannity to discuss the election results and the American people’s “clearly anti-big government, clearly anti-obama agenda” preferences.

While you will likely spend the day reading a slew headlines about how Arlen Specter’s loss in particular signifies that the country has gone completely anti-Washington, and incumbents across the land should be very afraid, and activists and/or Tea Partiers are taking over, Chris Matthews managed to distill the loss down to its most descriptive elements.

The AP is reporting that Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak has won the Democratic Senate primary against incumbent Senator Arlen Specter, who recently defected from the Republican Party citing irreconcilable differences with party administrators. Moments later, CNN also projected Sestak the winner in a close race.

Sarah Palin dropped by Hannity tonight to give her two cents on today’s Congressional primaries, although the only solid results coming in at the time were of Rand Paul‘s landslide victory in Kentucky, and she was overwhelmingly optimistic about the results. Palin was happy about Paul’s primary win, noting that some in the Republican establishment were queasy about him because he is “a bit of a libertarian,” but that she didn’t find anything wrong with making the “machine” uncomfortable, something she sees happening across the nation.

The press’s love affair with President Obama (such as it is) may be due to hit a rough patch if Obama is successful in preventing new legislation from passing that aims to keep reporters who refuse to disclose confidential sources from going to prison. Yes, that’s correct, Obama is against journalists being allowed to keep their sources confidential. Not all sources, mind you, just the ones leaking info about national security.

Looks like Senator Arlen Specter learned a little something from that feisty health care town hall he held last week — at least on Twitter, where rants are at least limited to 140 characters. Specter’s target: Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who has emerged as a voice promoting the “death panel” myth.

In honor light of all the coverage health care town hall meetings are getting, Mediaite decided to hold a town hall of its own. We wanted to know what New York had to say about the proposed health care bill. Alas, New York has not been one of the states blessed with an exciting Town Hall (and New Jersey doesn’t count). So, we did what we could.