In a sad twist to the Weinergate scandal, the cybersexting Congressman’s wife is reportedly pregnant. Huma Abedin, 35, has been married to 46 year-old Congressman Anthony Weiner since just July of last year. Abedin is a longterm aide to Hillary Clinton, and Bill Clinton even officiated the Weiner’s wedding. (Hillary can probably teach Weiner’s wife a thing or two about managing the political fallout from a cheating spouse who lies about it to the press. Obviously Weiner learned nothing from Bill Clinton’s example.)

I would write that this is just a rumor and is not confirmed, but it’s a rumor in a blog from the NY Times, and they write that several sources have confirmed the news. Weiner of course claims his wife isn’t happy with his cyber sexing, but that she’s sticking by him for now. The story that she’s pregnant adds some perspective to her apparent decision to stay.

Representative Anthony D. Weiner and Huma Abedin are about to make news of a different kind: they are expecting their first child.

Ms. Abedin, 35, is in the early stages of pregnancy, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.

The pregnancy, which the couple has disclosed to close friends and family, adds a new dimension to questions about the future of their marriage.

Mr. Weiner, 46, has admitted to engaging in salacious online conversations with at least six women over the last few years, including an incident last month in which he sent a photograph of himself in underwear to a college student in Washington state. He apologized to his wife and declared that they have no intention of splitting up.

“We will weather this,” Mr. Weiner said on Monday, during his emotional news conference. “I love her very much, and she loves me.”

But Ms. Abedin, a longtime aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton, has remained silent about the topic as she keeps up a hectic schedule at the State Department.

Ms. Abedin returned to work this week and departed on Wednesday for a trip to Northern Africa with Ms. Clinton.

A State Department spokesman declined to comment Wednesday afternoon.

[From Cityroom NYTimes.com]

Yesterday Bedhead pointed me to this article in the NY Post in which Sex and The City actor Chris Noth commented on Weinergate. He made some interesting observations. “Imagine if sex didn’t matter in politics, what would it be like?… I think media has changed our society not for the better. I think we would never have a John F. Kennedy with you guys around… I’d rather have [bleeped] some lady than [bleep] the country.” A lot of people agree with that last sentiment, and think that puts this all in perspective. If you have a good politician who fools around on his wife (and in this case just virtually as far as we know), what does it matter? I think the fact that the guy lied to multiple news outlets about it afterwards and was arrogant and evasive does matter, and that it speaks to his character. Plus he wasn’t just tweeting his dick to porn stars and single moms, he was sexting with 21 year-old college students. That’s technically legal, but it still makes him a skeeve.

Now that Weiner’s political future is up to question it leaves the field wide open for a potential Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City in 2013. Weiner was considering running for Mayor before we saw a photo of his dick in boxer briefs. (And a photo of his unclad erection has surfaced as well.)

Actor Alec Baldwin is reporting considering a run for mayor in 2013 in Weiner’s stead. His rep told Entertainment Weekly “I wouldn’t rule it out.” If Schwarzenegger can be governor of California I guess Baldwin can be mayor of New York. We already know that Baldwin has anger management issues, but some more dirt will probably come out on him if he enters politics. Chris Noth pretty much called it.

Photos of the happy couple are from 3/6/11 and 5/14/09. Credit: WENN.com

The Weinergate sext scandal rages on, with more women coming out of the woodwork, and more stories about the stupidity the Congressman from New York was up to. Radar even published all the chat sessions he had with one of his Facebook friends, a 40 something blackjack dealer from Vegas who won him over by talking politics for a hot minute before flattering him. It was stupid and lame, and reading those messages brought the scandal home for me – he just wanted to talk sex online and get some fan love from randoms. If he would have owned up to the c*ck pic from the beginning and admitted that he was up to no good online he might possibly have avoided this inevitable leakage of even more evidence. The Republican NY Congressman who sent the shirtless pic to the woman on Craig’s List resigned right away and we didn’t hear another peep about it. This douche is holding on and trying to weather the storm that is his own stupidity and throbbing ego.

There’s also that chick from Texas who friended him by commenting “hottt” on his YouTube video, we heard from her yesterday, the porn star who said that Weiner coached her to lie, and the 21 year-old student that Weiner originally tweeted the boxer briefs photo to. There are surely many more, and some of them have got to be scared that they could be called to the Capital to talk about what they were up to when the Congressman was bored at work. There’s going to be an ethics probe into whether he used official resources (he did according to one of the women he called on a Congress phone) and if he violated any House rules:

Disgraced New York Congressman Anthony Weiner is now facing an Ethics Committee investigation to determine whether or not he violated any House rules, and RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned that the women embroiled in Weinergate could be called to testify.

Los Angeles powerhouse attorney Mark Geragos, who has represented numerous high profile clients, including Roger Clinton and Susan McDougal, tells RadarOnline.com: “The Ethics committee could issue subpoenas for the women involved in the scandal. If subpoenaed, they are required to appear, by law.”

Weiner’s woes don’t end there — Geragos reveals that the embattled lawmaker’s government issued cellular phone records and government computer hard drives could also be admitted for evidence in the investigation.

“It’s possible that Congressman Weiner’s government issued cellular phone records, and government computer hard drives could be subpoenaed as well. It’s all relevant.”

In a joint investigation, RadarOnline.com and Star magazine broke the blockbuster story that Lisa Weiss, a 40-year-old Las Vegas blackjack dealer had a nine month sexting relationship with the disgraced Democrat.

Moments after weeping Weiner’s press conference on Monday, House Minority Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced: “I am calling for an Ethics Committee investigation to determine whether any official resources were used or any other violation of House rules occurred.”

Meanwhile, the congressman said he has no plans of resigning.

[From Radar]

This seems pretty inevitable, and again if he just would have nipped this in the bud from the beginning and admitted it was him and that he was doing some cybersexting he may have been able to get off (ha!) with a slap on the wrist. As it is he’s going to be a punchline for a long time and he may get kicked out of Congress. Plus we’ll probably get to read more asinine messages he sent to women online when he was jerking off. Yay!

Kaiser pointed me to this Daily Show send up of the Weiner press conference, which they didn’t cover right away on Friday. The best part is the second one where John Oliver comes in. Kaiser and I agreed that we would hit it so hard.

And here’s Stewart in a moral dilemma about whether to cover this. I love it. “What if it was Senator Scrotum? Comptroller Camel Toe?… You gotta come cleaner, Weiner.” This had me crying laughing.

This photo is from 2006. This woman has got to regret posing with him.

This one is from 2005.

Photo credit: WENN.com

Anthony Weiner and his wife of less than one year, Huma Abedin, on 3/26/11

Remember the scandal over the married NY Republican congressman who was trolling for strange on Craigslist? That guy resigned after a shirtless self portrait photo surfaced. Well a married NY Democratic congressman, the ironically named Anthony Weiner, publicly tweeted a photo over the weekend of his erect crotch (in underwear, thankfully, you can see the photo here) to a 21 year-old college student and then immediately tried to claim his “Facebook” was hacked, even though the photo was posted on the photo sharing site YFrog, which is connected to his Twitter account. Also, somehow he gained immediate control of his Twitter account from the “hackers,” who had hacked his “Facebook” and were mysteriously controlling his Twitter account through it. There’s all sorts of evidence that the guy is trying to cover for being 1. a skeeve and 2. an idiot with technology.

Some outlets are trying to make this into a political issue, but it seems like a men thinking with their little heads issue, which is an equal opportunity offender/equalizer. What’s more is that there’s plenty of evidence that Weiner has direct messaged with other women, including porn stars.

Liberal Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner tried Tuesday to deflect attention away from a controversy involving a lewd photo briefly posted on his Twitter account, saying the matter was undeserving of further attention.
Meanwhile, the conservative blogger who broke the story called for a full investigation of what he said was either the hacking of a congressman’s account or something Weiner wants to hide.

Weiner told reporters he wasn’t interested in talking about the issue any more, saying he already made statements over the Memorial Day weekend after news of the photo of the lower body of a man wearing underwear turned up on his Twitter account Friday night.

In a heated exchange with reporters, he repeatedly dodged direct questions about the photo.

“If I were giving a speech to 45,000 people, and someone in the back threw a pie or yelled out an insult, I would not spend the next two hours of my speech responding to that pie or that insult. I would return to the things that I want to talk about,” Weiner said in response to a question about whether he sent the lewd photo to a Seattle woman.
He also refused to say why he hasn’t asked law enforcement to investigate if in fact his account was hacked, as he has said it was.

In earlier comments, when asked if the photo was of him, Weiner deflected the question.

“I’m not going to talk about this anymore,” he said, adding: “I’m going to get back to the conversation I care about,” including economic issues and what he calls a conflict-of-interest situation involving conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on the health care reform law. The New York Democrat is a leading liberal voice in Congress.
Asked several questions about the Twitter situation, Weiner stuck to his message.

“I understand you’re doing your job, but I’m going to go back to work now,” Weiner said at one point. When asked if he was concerned about being hacked, he responded: “I’m going to return to working on the things I care about. I participated in the story a couple of days now, given comments on it. This is a distraction and I’m not going to let it distract me.”

When a reporter noted the distraction might go away if he answered the questions, Weiner answered: “I’m not convinced of that.

“I’m not convinced there’s any value of me talking about it,” Weiner said.

Asked again if he was the man in the photo, Weiner responded again that he had made previous statements and now it was time for him to get back to work.

Previously, Weiner blamed the photo on a hacker who got control of his social-networking accounts and played a prank. Weiner’s spokesman, Dave Arnold, said Monday the congressman has retained an attorney to look into the situation.
“We’ve retained counsel to explore the proper next steps and to advise us on what civil or criminal actions should be taken,” Arnold said in a statement. “This was a prank. We are loath to treat it as more, but we are relying on professional advice.”

No formal criminal investigation has been launched, which rankles Andrew Breitbart, whose conservative website biggovernment.com first reported the photo on Weiner’s Twitter account in connection with a tweet to a Seattle woman.

[From CNN]

Yeah, he did it and he can only respond by changing the subject. It’s a bad excuse and he’s handling it poorly. Below is a video of him making those statements and I’m pretty convinced he’s guilty now that I’ve watched it. He comes across as arrogant and evasive.

Why do men think that women find photos of their d*ck hot, though? I’ve had men send me stuff like this when I was single and all it made me do was point, laugh and hit “delete.” I should have kept some of that, though, because who knows where those idiots are now.

Here’s Weiner talking about the “prank” on his Twitter account and deflecting all questions. He never directly says “no” he didn’t send that tweet, he never says “no” that photo wasn’t of him, and he doesn’t answer questions as to why he never had this “hacking” investigated. [Mediaite via National Review]

Photos below are from 6/15/10. He’s not wearing a wedding ring because he only got married in July of last year. Credit: WENN.com

The Arnold Schwarzenegger scandal keeps churning along, and there are plenty of as-of-yet unknown details and future developments to keep us busy for some time. The best way I’ve found to catch up on all the breaking news in this story is in the “Divorce” section of HuffPo. They have some general divorce articles and advice in there, and it’s also the best aggregate source I’ve found for all the Arnold stories.

First off is The Enquirer’s kind of explosive claim that the Attorney General’s office is conducting an inquiry into whether Arnold misappropriated taxpayer money by having members of his California Highway Patrol security team ferry women to his suites at hotels. (Are you hearing the CHiPs theme song in your head? I am, and I’m seeing Ponch and Jon joking around with some little blonde thing as they walk her to the Governor’s suite. Who am I kidding? He liked them big and brunette.)

In a bombshell exclusive, RadarOnline.com has learned the Office of the Attorney General, a branch of the Department of Justice, is conducting a preliminary evaluation into the scope of Schwarzenegger’s double life, which allegedly included using his state-funded security details to cover up women being escorted into his hotel room.

Veteran hotel security officer William Taylor said he witnessed the “Governator” using California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers and vehicles to ferry scantily-clad women in-and-out of his suite at the Sacramento Hyatt Regency where he and wife Maria Shriver often stayed.

“It makes me very angry just to think of what was going on at that time,” Taylor, who passed a polygraph test about his claims, told the latest edition of the National Enquirer.

“On three differed occasions after the governor arrived alone at the Hyatt Regency, CHP Dignitary Protection Services arrived in their official vehicles, black Ford Crown Victoria sedans – about one to two hours later with one or two young females.

“They’d hurriedly escort the women through the service entrance on the second floor parking garage to the elevator that went to the governor’s private wing… the women would usually stay for two to four hours and either leave through the hotel’s main entrance or be driven away by the CHP in the same official vehicles.”

[From Radar Online]

TMZ of course tries to refute this, like the competitive high school girl they are, and has former members of Arnold’s security force quoted on the record as saying that they never witnessed anything out of the ordinary with Arnold. Arnold has hired attorney Marty Singer, who calls the story from Radar and The National Enquirer a fabrication. It sounds like the Enquirer has a source, though, and that they’re standing by their story.

Meanwhile that mistress who hired Gloria Allred, former child actress Gigi Goyette, has a new video interview with Extra. (Below.) Gigi previously gave details of her affair with Arnold to The National Enquirer, and you can read about that here. She doesn’t say anything new to Extra. This whole scandal is looking even more similar to the Tiger Woods mess. Some of his hired help went to Extra too.

Speaking of the hired help, Arnold’s first known extramarital baby momma, Mildred Baena, has threatened to sue Entertainment Tonight for that interview in which her ex husband insisted that he thought her youngest son was his. Baena’s lawyer writes that the ex knew all along that he couldn’t have fathered the 13 year-old, because he was out of the country when the boy was conceived. Also, as many of you pointed out, although the ex husband is listed as the father on the child’s birth certificate, Mildred checked the box for “no minor children” when she filed for divorce.

Amid all this, Arnold has fled to Ketchum, Idaho, where he was seen riding a bike. TMZ has a photo of him there. I googled the place and it’s a ski area, Sun Valley, with plenty of luxury resorts. I would assume the guy is renting an entire house. That just looks amazing. I need a vacation.

Arnold is shown on 3/31/11 in London. Credit: WENN.com

I haven’t been paying much attention to Donald Trump and his bid for the Presidency, because that moves an annoying entertainment figure into the realm of an annoying political figure, and we try to ignore those except in the cases of very obvious crossovers. (i.e. Sarah Palin.) So Trump has been spouting that “birther” nonsense to anyone that will listen, and Obama’s people actually responded and released his long form birth certificate. Prior to this there was an announcement in the local Hawaii paper and a “Certification of Live Birth,” which should suffice but was picked apart by people looking to find fault. It’s some complicated stuff, and if you’re interested you can read about it here, here and here, but the gist is that the conspiracy theorists were grasping at straws to try and say that Obama wasn’t born in the US and was therefor not qualified to be President. With crazy Trump at the helm, those theories gained more steam. Anyway Obama put out his long form birth certificate, which was filed away in Hawaii somewhere, and Trump is taking credit for it.

“I know that there is going to be a segment of people for which no matter what we put out, this issue will not be put to rest,” Obama said. “But I am speaking for the vast majority of the American people as well as for the press. We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We have better stuff to do. I have got better stuff to do. We have got big problems to solve.”

“We are not going to be able to do it if we are distracted, we are not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other … if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts, we are not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by side shows and carnival barkers,” the president declared earlier.

The document released by the White House differs from the one that Obama’s aides made public during the 2008 presidential campaign. Instead of a “certification” of live birth, this was a “certificate,” clearly recording that the president was born on Aug. 4, 1961 in the Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu.

For years, Obama’s circle of aides had resisted calls to make the latter form public, noting that a certification is legally sound and what any citizen of Hawaii receives upon requesting documents of birth. And indeed, for some time, that explanation — supported by a a wide swath of other contemporaneous evidence – seemed to suffice.

But some who challenged the president’s citizenship remained unsatisfied, and in recent weeks they found a high-profile megaphone for their cause: business tycoon and presidential flirt Donald Trump. – Huffington Post

---

Donald Trump is already taking the credit for getting Barack Obama to go public with his birth certificate … saying, “I’m very proud of myself” … but adds, “We have to see if it’s real.”

Trump added, “I want to look at it, but I hope it’s true so that we can get on to much more important matters … he should have done it a long time ago.”

He continued, “I am really honored, frankly, to have played such a big role in hopefully, hopefully getting rid of this issue.”

As for the actual document, Trump added, “We have to look at it, we have to see … is it real? Is it proper? What’s on it? But I hope it checks out beautifully.” – TMZ

[From HuffPo and TMZ]

The people who don’t want Obama to be President aren’t going to accept this as fact, and as TMZ points out they’ll say there’s some conspiracy behind waiting so long to release it. As Kaiser told me about this issue, sometimes it’s better not to feed the trolls. Look at how Trump is gloating.

In “bitch, please” news, former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) has offered up what has to be the most laughable excuse for infidelity I’ve ever heard. For background, Gingrich is currently on his third wife. He left his first wife for his second wife after 19 years while the first wife, who had supported him through graduate school and raised his two daughters, was in the hospital suffering from uterine cancer. He supposedly refused to pay child support or alimony payments to his first wife to the point where the local Baptist church had to take up a collection to help support his family. Then Newt’s second wife, his first jumpoff, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis about 18 years after he married her. He left her eight months later.

So now that Gingrich is perhaps considering a run for President, he’s giving some far fetched excuse for cheating and leaving wives when they’re ill. (And rumor has it that he didn’t just cheat with his jumpoffs.) In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, he blamed love of country for his misplaced passion.

“There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate,” Gingrich told CBN’s David Brody, in an interview taped at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition and posted online Tuesday night.

“And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn’t trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them,” Gingrich said. “I found that I felt compelled to seek God’s forgiveness. Not God’s understanding, but God’s forgiveness. I do believe in a forgiving God. And I think most people, deep down in their hearts hope there’s a forgiving God. Somebody once said that when we’re young, we seek justice, but as we get older, we seek mercy. There’s something to that, I think.”

[From Politico via Vanity Fair]

Newt loved the country and worked so hard he accidentally had affairs right when his wives were ill and needed him most. He then couldn’t be bothered to support the families he left behind. What a great God-fearing bastion of morality he is. Apparently Bill Clinton and John Edwards loved America too.

I’m only covering this because I think that it’s necessary. A lot of people were upset by Mike Huckabee’s comments about Natalie Portman being a shameful “unwed mother” last week, and since his comments have dominated political AND gossip blogs for the past few days, Huckabee has issued several statements about it, in an effort to get more attention, I suppose, and help shill his book and raise more money for what I’m guessing will be his run for the Republican nomination in 2012. First, his blog post on Friday:

In a recent media interview about my new book, A Simple Government, I discussed the first chapter, “The Most Important Form of Government Is a Father, Mother, and Children.” I was asked about Oscar-winner Natalie Portman’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Natalie is an extraordinary actor, very deserving of her recent Oscar and I am glad she will marry her baby’s father. However, contrary to what the Hollywood media reported, I did not “slam” or “attack” Natalie Portman, nor did I criticize the hardworking single mothers in our country. My comments were about the statistical reality that most single moms are very poor, under-educated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death. That’s the story that we’re not seeing, and it’s unfortunate that society often glorifies and glamorizes the idea of having children out of wedlock.

[From Huckabee’s Blog]

Eh. It still doesn’t make any sense to me, mostly because I think Huckabee picked the wrong “example” of an “unrepentant” celebrity single mother. Portman is in a relationship with her baby-daddy, and as of this moment, they are planning on raising the baby together. But I guess I’m glad that he’s trying to roll back any insinuation that he made that he was “criticizing the hardworking single mothers in our country.” Still, Huckabee continues to neglect the baby-daddy angle of the issue – why is it only the women who are criticized for having babies out of wedlock again?

In addition to his blog post, Huckabee also released this statement to Us Weekly: “These people should read my book and they would know what I said instead of what some left-wing partisans are attempting to put forth. I do appreciate the attention to the book as it is sparking interest in it dramatically.” So, basically, it’s just about him selling his book. Nothing to see here, folks. Especially since Natalie hasn’t said anything about the manufactured controversy… and I really hope she doesn’t bother. No need to give this dude any more air time.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is going “Full Quayle” on Natalie Portman. The young’uns might not get that reference, but for those of us who were kids when Bush Sr. was in office, we remember the Murphy Brown incident. Vice President Dan “Potatoe” Quayle gave some kind of major speech where he attacked the show Murphy Brown (starring Candace Bergen) as promoting single motherhood because the character had a baby out of wedlock and didn’t die of shame. Well, Huckabee is making me nostalgic for that controversy, because at the very least, Dan Quayle got the basics of the (fictional) situation correct. Mike Huckabee sounds like he doesn’t really know what’s going on in Natalie Portman’s life, or how annoyingly smug she is, or that she seems to be campaigning for America’s Princess. Here’s how Huckabee attacked Portman:

She won over the Academy, but Natalie Portman doesn’t have a fan in presidential prospect Mike Huckabee. The former Arkansas governor and Fox News Channel host attacked the best actress winner, 29, who’s currently expecting her first child with fiance Benjamin Millepied.

“People see a Natalie Portman who boasts, ‘We’re not married but we’re having these children and they’re doing just fine,” Huckabee told radio host Michael Medved on his show Monday. “I think it gives a distorted image. It’s unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out-of- wedlock children.”

Calling Portman’s pregnancy “troubling,” Huckabee went on to say that many single parents don’t have the resources to hire help, the way someone like the Black Swan star would.

“Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care,” he said. “And that’s the story that we’re not seeing.”

In her acceptance speech Sunday night, Portman thanked Millepied, saying he gave her “the most important role” in her life.

Medved quipped back that Millepied “didn’t give her the most wonderful gift, which would be a wedding ring!”

[From Us Weekly]

Ugh, there are so many things wrong with this. First of all, can you really criticize a woman for being an “unwed mother” when she’s engaged to be married? When her pregnancy announcement came packaged with an engagement announcement? That was Natalie’s intent, you see – she wanted to avoid the “unwed mother” criticism by showing us that she did indeed have a man and a ring to go with her baby.

Second of all: What does Huckabee suggest all of those pregnant women do when they (or their prospective baby-daddies) don’t want to get married? HAVE AN ABORTION?!?

Third: Huckabee seriously picked the wrong target in general. There are plenty of single, unwed mothers who wear their independence proudly, and would be much, much easier targets for this kind of cheap, headline-grabbing, anti-woman diatribe. Natalie’s message over the past two months has been everything that Huckabee’s evangelical base could support – she’s gushed about motherhood being “the most important thing” in the whole world, and her basic implication is that she feels so honored and privileged to be conceiving the conception with such an amazing Ballet K-Fed. Her whole deal is: Motherhood, Fiancée = The Best. Career & Independence = Not Important.

Fourth: There are just as many screwed up kids that come from two-parent homes as those who come from single-parent homes. And where is the outrage for the baby-daddies again?

Ugh, I can’t believe I’m defending Natalie like this.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I taped Piers Morgan last night because I heard that Matt Damon would be on, but apparently Damon is on tonight, Thursday. Bret Michaels was on last night, and he was pretty interesting and his health stories are incredible, but he didn’t say much we haven’t heard before. Advance details of Matt Damon’s appearance have him saying that he’s not happy with the way President Obama is running the country. To be fair, it sounds like he was asked a direct question about it and he answered it, explaining that he was particularly dissatisfied with Obama’s education policy.

I’m not going to get into politics here, (apart from covering this story, which I’m sure I’ll get yelled at for anyway) but a lot of people would agree with him on both sides of the aisle for many different reasons. You can’t please everyone, as much as Obama seems to try. Damon is surely going to get a lot of press for this, just as he got a lot of coverage for being one of the first people to criticize Sarah Palin. Here’s more:

When CNN’s Piers Morgan asked actor Matt Damon if he was happy with the way President Barack Obama has been running the country and if Damon was “a fan” of the president, Damon answered “no.”

Damon and the cast of “The Adjustment Bureau” — Emily Blunt, John Slattery and Anthony Mackie — are Thursday evening’s guests on “Piers Morgan Tonight.” During the course of their conversation, Damon and Morgan covered Hollywood, politics, fatherhood and much more.

“He (Obama) misinterpreted his mandate,” said Damon. “He’s doubled down on a lot of things.”

“In his State of the Union he didn’t even say the word ‘poverty,’ ” said Damon. “You’ve got millions of people languishing in it.” Damon, who backed the Obama campaign in 2008, said he appreciates that the president is a “deep thinker.” The actor called Obama brilliant, but said he “definitely wanted more.”

When questioned about what he’d do about Afghanistan, Damon said, “I don’t think the mission there has been very well articulated. And I think it would help to kind of reframe the way we’re thinking about being there and why we’re there.”
Damon also said there has not been a meaningful reform of Wall Street. He said he believes that is “dangerous” and “shameful” and that the financial crisis is “just going to happen again,” because “they don’t make anything. They don’t build anything.”

Morgan asked about Damon’s well-known disapproval of Sarah Palin and the fact that he has spoken out against her since she was announced as John McCain’s running mate in 2008. Damon said he still feels it was reckless to have someone who was “a complete mystery to everybody” be “literally a heartbeat away from the presidency.” Damon also said he disagrees with Palin politically. “She’s not somebody who I would vote for.”

Damon said, though, that while he is passionate about politics, he has no political aspirations.

[From CNN]

I’m really looking forward to seeing that tonight. Back in March of last year, Damon said that he was “disappointed” in Obama, but conceded that “politics is compromise.” He said “I’m disappointed in the health care plan and in the troop buildup in Afghanistan. Everyone feels a little let down because, on some level, people expected all their problems to go away. But real change comes from everyday people. You can’t wait for a leader.” What a difference a couple of years makes. Or not.

When compared to other Congressional scandals, this one is almost quaint. A married Republican Congressman from New York, Chris Lee, sent some flirty messages to a woman on Craigslist in which he misrepresented his age and marital status and eventually sent her a shirtless photo. It’s like a scandal from the MySpace era! The guy didn’t even bother to use a fake name or anonymous e-mail address and the woman who received the messages googled him, figured out he was a married member of Congress and sent all the evidence to Gawker. Three hours later, Lee resigned from Congress, admitting he’d “made profound mistakes.” I’m sure the shirtless stuff was the tip of the iceberg, but it’s not like he was laundering money or screwing interns. (That we know of.)

Rep. Christopher Lee is a married Republican congressman serving the 26th District of New York. But when he trolls Craigslist’s “Women Seeking Men” forum, he’s Christopher Lee, “divorced” “lobbyist” and “fit fun classy guy.” One object of his flirtation told us her story.

On the morning of Friday, January 14, a single 34-year-old woman put an ad in the “Women for Men” section of Craigslist personals. “Will someone prove to me not all CL men look like toads?” she asked, inviting “financially & emotionally secure” men to reply.

That afternoon, a man named Christopher Lee replied. He used a Gmail account that Rep. Christopher Lee has since confirmed to be his own. (It’s the same Gmail account that was associated with Lee’s personal Facebook account, which the Congressman deleted when we started asking questions.)

By email, Lee identified himself as a 39-year-old divorced lobbyist and sent a PG picture to the woman from the ad. (In fact, Lee is married and has one son with his wife. He’s also 46.)

By modern day standards, the conversation was relatively banal: No prostitutes, escorts, or madams were involved. Just good old fashioned lying and an apparent willingness to cheat on one’s wife.

The woman says she cut off contact when she searched for Lee online and concluded he’d lied about his age, occupation, and marital status. Then she forwarded us the correspondence.

Yesterday, we reached out to Rep. Lee, whose support for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and vote to reject federal abortion funding suggests a certain comfort with publicly scrutinizing others’ sex lives.

A spokesman for the Congressman confirmed that the email address belonged to Lee, and that he had deleted his Facebook account because our initial inquiry had him fretting about “privacy.”

[From Gawker, which has the texts]

Lee initially tried to use the “I was hacked” defense, popular among public figures busted for bad behavior, but it’s safe to assume that was a bogus excuse now that he’s resigned. What a lame way to throw away a government career. At least get laid or get a free apartment out of the deal.

Image credit: Gawker.