At what point in the Republican primary can we start calling the entire exercise downright Nixonian? Probably at the moment campaigns start sending each other food. Today is the ill-timed 15th anniversary of the House of Representatives giving Newt Gingrich the dubious distinction of being the only Speaker in history to be reprimanded by his colleagues and ordered to pay a $300,000 fine for his ethics violations, and the Romney campaign is celebrating the only way it knows how: birthday cake!

For the past few months of the presidential campaign, Newt Gingrich has bemoaned the infamous climate change ad that he filmed with Nancy Pelosi as one of the dumbest things he’s done in his political career. He continues to do so, despite the many attack ads against him specifically targeting it. But on CNN’s State of the Union today, Pelosi hinted from her time working with her former Republican colleague that it might have some competition with other things Newt has done over the course of his career.

A teenager is in a coma after Anderson Cooper‘s daytime producers encouraged him to “film the crazy stuff you do” for a show on the “teenage mind,” Gawker reported Friday.

While recording himself “skateboarding adventurously”, sources told John Cook, the teen fell and sustained a severe head injury which left him “comatose.”

Buzzing around the blogosphere has been this clip from Tuesday’s 700 Club, in which the evangelical host Pat Robertson said divorce was acceptable if one’s spouse had Alzheimer’s, as the disease is a “type of death.”

Robertson’s provocative statement was spurred on by a viewer email who detailed a friend going through difficult times with his significant other who suffered from the disease and didn’t even recognize him anymore. The viewer’s friend wondered if he should be allowed to see other people.

The Associated Press is reporting today that Representative Charlie Rangel, who the House Ethics Committee recently decided to censure for his ethics violations, will argue that he does not deserve censure and ask the House to reconsider his punishment.

The term “political theater” gets thrown around a lot, but that was exactly what happened on the House floor today. In a moment so unexpected the cable news networks seemed caught off guard (until they all went wall-to-wall), Rep. Charlie Rangel spoke for more than 20 minutes about his pending ethics trial.

Must-see video.

Since the BP oil spill began in the Gulf of Mexico 50 days ago, the media has been attacking the situation from all sides. Coverage has included everything from outraged citizens and oil-clad wildlife to Obama trying to figure out “whose ass to kick.” But the Washington Examiner suggests there is a more complex situation with conflict of interests since “BP bought up some of Washington’s biggest pundits to clean up their image.”

The big day for Rod Blagojevich’s dubiously categorized “ethics” lecture at Northwestern University has come and gone and, judging from the footage college’s newspaper has released, it lived up to the hype. America’s fanciest gubernatorial coif and its disgraced owner proved he still has some tricks up his sleeve.

Turns out Eliot Spitzer may not be the only disgraced former governor to make a living teaching ethics to college students. Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, quite possibly the most desperate unemployed man in America, has landed a gig doing the same at Northwestern University, where the undergraduate community is ready to give him a hero’s welcome. And they might just have a point.

This week, TechCrunch fired Daniel Brusilovsky, an intern in the throes of his Senior year of high school, for requesting a Macbook Air in exchange for writing a post about a start-up–after he’d already received one computer for the same thing.

The New York Times Magazine this weekend features a profile about three generations of the comedic Elliott family. But one aspect of the writing of the story seems a bit funny: Chris’s father is Bob Elliott, one half of the legendary radio comedy team Bob and Ray. Bob’s wife’s first husband was Raymond Knight, a [...]

ESPN’s Michael Wilbon was on CNN this morning to discuss an incident earlier this week where he, like many others in the media, falsely attributed quotes to Rush Limbaugh while reasoning that Limbaugh shouldn’t allowed to purchase a minority stake in the St. Louis Rams. Meanwhile, Limbaugh makes lemonade on the WSJ‘s Opinion page.

The New York Times has ended its relationship with Ben Stein, a sporadic contributor since the early ’80s and lately a Sunday Business columnist, after his appearance in advertisments for the credit-report service FreeScore.com violated Times ethics policy.