According to Mary Kane at the Washington Independent, over the past few weeks a deeply disturbing letter has been distributed to residents of Clarendon and Lyon Park who display “Obama for President” signs on their lawns.

This piece of correspondence attempts to make the case that “ostentatious support” of Barack Obama is an act of subconscious racism on behalf of the “Dearest neighbors” to which it is addressed. It goes on to compare Obama supporters to “those who pretend not to stare at an inter-racial couple,” to alert the recipient that “voting for Obama does not absolve you from from racism, it may even confirm it,” and then makes an exhortation to “cleanse your soul of the last vestiges of racism,” presumably by not supporting Obama.

Against my gut instinct, I have decided to refrain from dignifying this letter with any sort of impassioned declamation. Not to mention that the logic, aside from being reprehensible, is damn near incomprehensible. (The punctuation and hyphenation are equally so.)

Just read the letter. Whatever side of the aisle you sit on, I imagine you will find it terribly deflating.

Kane says that the neighborhood listserv was overwhelmed with inquiries as to who was responsible for the letter — to the point where the moderator closed the thread. I am interested to know if this mailing has made it anywhere other than the neighborhoods Kane mentions. If you’ve heard of any “Dearest neighbors” receiving such a thing outside of Clarendon or Lyon Park, please let us know in the comments.

Sarah Palin told everybody that all the Palins are proud proud proud that her baby’s having a baby.

Really? So is she the one who decided that Bristol, the five-months pregnant teen, would carry youngest-for-now Trig (even their names are tragic) throughout the big coming out party in Ohio last week?

How come the snowmobile racing musher husband stood hands-free while poor poor Bristol was saddled with Trig? One on her and one in her, as Dolly Parton would say, all morning long?

Could it be because the little one and the huge blanket she had wrapped around her covered the round mound at her midsection ?

Poor Trig was a beard?

Sure he was. That’s pretty sick, ain’t it?

Congressman Bob Inglis, a Republican from South Carolina, isn’t afraid to get down.

Unfortunately, we’re all too late to R.S.V.P.

Small-time politicians, be nice to those small-time young reporters. So, what if their newspapers are twelve pages long, and part of some community chain? That won’t matter when they’re dissecting your character eight years later.If there’s a moral to this story in Houston alternative weekly, the Houston Press, it might be that. Much has been said about how Obama is getting the soft treatment from the media. But, as the fate of the Democratic nomination again hangs in a balance (for the seventh time? Or is it the tenth?), one journalist has written a detailed account of his experiences with Barack Obama back in Illinois, and it ain’t so pretty. Here’s a snippet:

“What’s interesting, and almost never discussed, is that [Obama] built his entire legislative record in Illinois in a single year.

Republicans controlled the Illinois General Assembly for six years of Obama’s seven-year tenure. Each session, Obama backed legislation that went nowhere; bill after bill died in committee. During those six years, Obama, too, would have had difficulty naming any legislative —achievements.”

I interned at the Press for a year during college, so occasionally I check back on the website. The article, written by reporter Todd Spivak (who won a slightly ridiculous number of awards last year), has thus far received 211 comments, which may be more comments than were collectively posted over the entire time I was there. The best parts of the piece are when Spivak dishes about his exchanges with Obama.

Take this one, which occurred the morning after Spivak’s profile of Obama was published online:

“I arrived early at my new offices. I hadn’t taken my coat off when the phone rang. It was Obama.

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My fellow Americans, I ask you: Can this great nation of ours really endure four to eight more years of the Black Eyed Peas?

Seriously, think of the Super Bowl halftime shows.

Did Hillary Clinton sink to a new low with this ad? And what’s with the hipster glasses?

The New York Times reports that Henry Waxman’s congressional committee may ask the Justice Department to fire up a criminal inquiryinto Roger Clemens. For those without a TV, radio, or Internet connection, Clemens on Feb. 13 took the hot seat in front of Waxman’s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, in what turned into a hilarious circus of distortions, politicking, bullshit, and very possibly lies.

It’s that last part that Waxman’s interested in. Clemens used the hearing to do what he’s been doing ever since the Mitchell report on MLB steroid use came out last year–that is, deny he’s ever taken the substances. His denials contradict the testimony of his former trainer, Brian McNamee, who says he shot up the Rocket on numerous occasions.

Much won’t come of this. I hope the Justice Department has better things to do than investigate whether this blowhard once used drugs. Waxman has said he regrets holding the hearing, which perhaps indicates how interested he is in really pursuing this matter. Plus, Clemens has suffered plenty: It was revealed that an abscess on his butt once caused him to bleed through a pair of designer pants.

A few weeks ago, I accidentally subscribed to a regular e-newsletter sent out by Human Events, a publication that has been Leading The Conservative Movement Since 1944. As someone with a moderate interest in literature, I often endeavor to apprise myself of new releases, as I did with Ann Coulter’s latest offering, her sixth. I had planned on summarizing my findings on Coulter’s book here on this blog, but attempting to process that information made me suddenly very tired, and I’d rather just skip it.

Initially, I intended to remove myself from this mailing list, which addresses me, with an insiderish greeting that I find both presumptuous and flattering, as “Dear Fellow Conservative.” But as the weeks have gone by, I’ve realized that I actually enjoy one of the newsletter’s features: A weekly e-mail I receive from 1995 Time magazine Person of the Year Newt Gingrich.

I don’t actually read the e-mails, which I find boring, but I do enjoy seeing the name “Newt Gingrich” inbox and imagining that the e-mail is a personal note from Newt. The real appeal, though, is Gingrich’s e-mail subject lines, which have been slowly building into a reactionary conservative found poem in my inbox as the weeks pass. I didn’t think Gingrich could top last week’s e-mail, entitled: The Unilateral Disarmament Democrats: Putting Trial Lawyers Ahead of Your Family’s Safety.

This week, he did. The subject line read, simply: Advantage: Terrorists–Still.

In an earlier blog post about Obama’s secret doughnuts-for-votes program, I quoted Peter Rosenstein, a Clinton partisan, as saying Clinton’s D.C. operation “did not have a doughnut strategy.” Friday, the New York Times reported that in January, the Clinton campaign spent $1,200 at Dunkin Donuts.

Is it too much of a stretch to speculate that had Clinton not been so stingy with the fried dough, her campaign wouldn’t be in such dire straits? Where are these doughnuts going, if not to the polls? Anyone check the pockets of Mark Penn, above?

First, Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle graced the 2008 election season with its mildly pleasant imaginary Obama scenarios like “BARACK OBAMA DREW YOUR PICTURE IN THE SAND” and “BARACK OBAMA SMILED WHEN HE HEARD ME MENTION YOUR NAME.”

Now, companion site Hillary Clinton Is Your New Bicycle has surfaced to provide mildly unpleasant imaginary Clinton scenarios. Among them: “HILLARY CLINTON IS USING ENDNOTES INSTEAD OF FOOTNOTES,” “HILLARY CLINTON’S AWAY MESSAGE IS GIVING YOU AN UNNEEDED GLIMPSE INTO HER PSYCHE,” and “HILLARY CLINTON ASKED FOR THAT WITHOUT BACON.”

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Say what you will about Obama’s celeb-studded “Yes, We Can” music video. At least it’s not … whatever this is.

Obama is great for just being Obama, says Marc Fisher. “Win or lose,” the senator from Illinois has changed the way Americans view race, he writes in his most recent column. “It’s one thing to believe in a picture we’d like to be true — a society moving toward a colorblind ideal — and something entirely different to live each day with a personification of that ideal.” And which generation has advanced this new way of thinking? Not today’s youth, but the youth of yesteryear. That’s right: Boomers! They always get credit for everything.

While the District hopes to stop handguns from coming in, Mayor Ray Nagin from New Orleans is …

Logic schmogic. Maybe Roger Clemens and his former trainer are both telling the truth (check out the second photo), even though they are saying diametrically opposite things.

Do not slip while running in Adams Morgan. In some places, it’s a long way down.

Barack Obama has a lot going for him: youth, good looks, inspiring orations, and now eight straight primary/caucus wins. Political types are wondering whether his momentum is unstoppable and how Hillary Clinton can catch up.

No one’s pointing to one secret of Obama’s success: doughnuts. When I voted in Del Ray yesterday, an Obama volunteer was offering voters of all stripes free doughnuts (I decided it would be an ethical violation to take one). Obama visited a doughnut shop with Mayor Adrian Fenty yesterday. And there he was on the cover of the Post this morning, big box o’ Dunkins in his arms.

Ian Martinez, chair of DC for Obama, says the doughnut strategy was “pretty extensive.” Moonlighting Fenty adviser John Falcicchio, he says, “showed up [at Obama HQ] with 150 dozen doughnuts yesterday morning. It was awesome. We had one of those sandbag assembly lines passing boxes and boxes of doughnuts.” Martinez didn’t accompany any of the doughnuts to polling stations, but “I’ll tell you,” he says, “it seems like the doughnuts went fast. I don’t know if it affected anyone’s vote.”

(Martinez’s fascination with doughnuts has been documented in the pages of this paper, to which he’s contributed in the past.)

Attempts to navigate the Clinton and Obama phone trees in search of comment on this issue were fruitless, or at least an accurate reflection of this reporter’s utter cluelessness when it comes to political reportage. E-mails sent regarding this subject to both campaigns and to Falcicchio have, perhaps not surprisingly, gone unreturned.

UPDATE 5:22 p.m.: “Isn’t that generous!” marvels Peter Rosenstein, who was on Clinton’s D.C. steering committee and is on her national GOTV committee, when a reporter informs him about the Obama doughnut blitz. “We did not have a doughnut strategy,” he acknowledges. When asked if he thought Clinton might have done better had she handed out the sweet treats, Rosenstein says, “I don’t think it really mattered. I think the people who went out and supported Hillary did so because they believed and still believe in her candidacy. I don’t believe doughnuts were the issue.”

He adds: “I happen to like doughnuts, and I thank anybody who buys me a doughnut.”

If you’re having trouble deciding who you will vote for in Tuesday’s primary, this site will choose for you! Answer 10 questions, and it will tell you which candidate thinks most like you. It is slightly outdated though.