This just in: Our Amazin' Nats are a national punchline. First the Wall Street Journal used the team's woes in the lede of its Sonia Sotomayor hearings coverage, comparing the hopelessness of being a Republican senator with the hopelessness of being a Nat.

Then President Barack Obama, in the broadcast booth during the All-Star telecast, told the country that because of parity fans of all teams still remained hopeful that this season would turn out OK. Then he threw in a caveat: Except fans of the Nationals.

Obama clearly enjoyed his Nats takedown, smiling and looking around the booth for support.

But Fox announcer Tim McCarver reacted as if POTUS had told another Special Olympics joke. McCarver stayed stonefaced and silent and stared straight ahead. It was fabulous TV for everybody.

Except, you know, for fans of the Nationals.

AFTER THE JUMP: Czarniak and Rieger pile on? Tim Lincecum = Mitch Kramer? All-Star Do-Gooder Still Never a Bullet? Beer is bad at parties? Fight, fight in the comments section? Joe Gibbs Comes Back to D.C.?

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Lincecum and Obama Leave Nats Fans Dazed, Confused" »

Today's Washington Post has a multi-media package about the street hockey community that has hung out on Pennsylvania Avenue NW since the strip in front of the White House was closed in 1995.

The piece comes out just as President Obama's getting verbally cross-checked by Capitals fans for talking up Alex Ovechkin in Russia despite never having gone several blocks east to the Verizon Center to see him play.

The article makes no mention of the evil-doer responsible for shutting down that pristine patch of asphalt: Tim McVeigh, who also happens to be the biggest mass murderer America has ever convicted.

Read More "Tim McVeigh, the Father of DC Street Hockey?" »

Michael Jackson's memorial service monopolized every media outlet yesterday and seems to be the only national news event worth covering this morning.  It was poignant, it was tasteful, but what does it have to do with Washington?  Everything, according to Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), who spoke at the service yesterday and announced House Resolution 600. Oh yes, here comes the Michael Jackson tribute resolution, and it is lengthy.  They praise him for his humanitarian efforts and then proceed to list every kind thing he did.  For example, "in 1994, Michael donated $500,000 to Elizabeth Taylor's AIDS Foundation."  Good to know.

Apparently, watching the funeral online was an important part of yesterday's Congressional schedule.  Politico posts this message from the head of the House's tech operations.

"The Michael Jackson event is causing even more inbound Internet BW usage.
We are monitoring both Internet connections and they are maxed out at 155 Mbps inbound."

More District news, plus Obamas in Russia after the jump. Read More "Our Morning Roundup: Busted Edition" »

Good Morning, City Desk Readers!  It's the first day of July and the forecast doesn't call for 90 degree temperatures so it's already looking like a good one.  On the news front, the nation's capital is expecting some new residents that are already getting attention before moving in.

• Minnesota has finally come to its senses and decided that Al Franken will be its second senator.  It only took the ballot counters and lawyers eight months to figure that out.  The former Saturday Night Live writer will take his seat following the July 4th recess.  Franken will be the 60th Democrat in the Senate, making it possible for the party to break a Republican filibuster but he wants everyone to know that he's not looking to block legislation on a regular basis.

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: New Neighbors Edition" »

Stop holding your breath, folks: It's become clear that President Barack Obama has absolutely no intention of putting Taxation Without Representation license plates on his limousine.

ABC News reporter Yunji de Nies got Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on the record at this afternoon's press briefing:

Read More "White House Again Fends Off D.C. License Plate Questions" »

The Washington Post just posted an article announcing that an elementary school in Upper Marlboro, MD might be named after Barack Obama, if the proposal is accepted at a vote tomorrow night.  The article goes on to mention that schools named after sitting presidents are not uncommon in this country, citing the examples of George W. Bush Elementary, opened in 2003 in California, and Richard Nixon Elementary, which welcomed Iowa students in 1970.  Leaving aside the fact that these other schools were named after possibly the two worst presidents in history, isn't it a little soon for schools to be named after Obama?  He was only inaugurated 155 days ago, while the other presidents had been in office for at least a year before they got a school named after them.

We do need to find more names for public buildings, especially in this city.  It gets confusing when you have to differentiate between which Reagan building to meet someone at, or use first names when figuring out which Kennedy goes with which arena/school/office.  But Obama's legacy is yet to be determined.  He's the first black president, which of course gives him precedence, but maybe the citizens should hold off for a few months.  Just to save the students from any possible embarrassment.

Throughout yesterday, more details about the Metro crash were released, including the names of the nine individuals who died in Monday afternoon's accident. City Desk also reported that the train that hit the stopped train outside Fort Totten was 2 months overdue for its brake maintenance service.  The train that initiated the crash was also made up of 1000-series Metro cars, the oldest in the system.  Now the Washington Post is reporting that the driver of the train, who was killed in the crash, had activated the emergency brake on the train, but it did not stop. 

Other things are happening beyond the Red Line, of course.  Read about them after the jump.

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: One Day At A Time Edition" »

Just when the media was about to give up on President Obama and reported that his approval ratings were dropping off, he held a press conference and turned the sinking ship around.  For the past week, Obama has been criticized for his lack of comments on the Iranian election situation but today, he finally responded with much more force than he previously expressed.  Even the concerns of John McCain, who has been ceaselessly complaining about Obama's hesitance to comment on Iran should be quelled. Read More "Obama Press Conference Wrap-Up: Finally" »

Convention is an entertaining look at the nuts and bolts of the 2008 Denver National Democratic Convention that nominated Barrack Obama for president. It does not focus on the minutiae, like the number of chicken wings consumed or number of plastic blue bracelets exchanged for bodily fluids, nor does it deconstruct the nominating process with pols and delegates. What it does do is follow three groups of people—reporters from the Denver Post, Denver city planners, and leaders of the protest group Recreate68—as they engage in what everyone in the film agrees is a "once-in-a-lifetime" event.
Read More "Reviewed: Convention at Silverdocs" »

As he was heading off the air, I'm pretty sure I heard Dave Feldman at Fox-5 report last night that the Wizards are going to work out Stephon Marbury today.

Did anybody tell Abe Pollin?

***

Lebron's come and gone. But we only have to wait a week for the next celeb sports doc extravaganza: Luis Tiant will be at the E Street Cinema downtown on June 22 for red-carpet screening of "The Lost Son of Havana," a film about the ex-Indian- Twin-Red Sock-Yankee-Pirate-Angel's trip back to the Cuban capital, which is his Akron.

After the screening the movie's producers will throw a bash across the street from the theater at the ESPN Zone. But don't expect much. In the invitation the party's organizers just sent out, they're promising that: "Light refreshments will be served in accordance with House Ethics rules."

House ethics used to lead to the wildest parties in town. Jack Abramoff mussed up everything.

***

Sign of the times or the Times? Despite a big write-up in Sunday's Washington Times, the Hoop Dreams Scholarship fund had to cancel its next big fundraising event for lack of interest.

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Marbury a Wizard? Can You Party AND Maintain House Ethics? Wake Up Call for Hoop Dreams? Letterman Loses Pride, Battle With Palinites?" »

Don Beyer has been announced as the new U.S. ambassador to Switzerland.

Gotta be a mistake.

What happened to Sweden?

Beyer's a sainted figure in my native Falls Church, and I'd heard a couple months ago from townies that Beyer was in fact going to get the Ambassador to Sweden job.

That made total sense. And not just because Beyer was a huge Obama fundraiser.

Beyer's also Mr. Volvo! He's been Falls Church's ambassador to Sweden forever through the work at his dealership! He's beloved by Swedish commerce types, and even sponsors U.S./Sweden chamber of commerce golf tournaments! He's helped Sweden enjoy a fabulous trade imbalance with the U.S. for decades! "Beyer" might as well have umlauts over the E's, the guy's so perfect for the job.

So I called up Beyer's office to confirm. Folks there denied, denied, denied there was any chance of him getting that job or any other job from the administration. Then after I posted what I'd hoped was a jokey refutation of the ambassador rumors on City Desk, Beyers staff called me and acted as if I'd mucked everything up and committed some sort of journalistic war crime just by putting such stuff in print. Their over-reaction was as bizarre as any I'd ever gotten from a story.

And now it comes out that Beyer will indeed be an ambassador. Only to Switzerland.

What's he ever done for Switzerland?

Again: Gotta be a mistake.

An understandable one, from my perspective. I always get the two confused. And I think everybody does. Quick now:

Roger Federer: Swiss or Swede?

Read More "Did Obama Confuse Switzerland and Sweden? Don Beyer Named Ambassador to Wrong Country!" »

Obamaphiles, set your DVRs now. Tonight and tomorrow at 9 p.m., Brian Williams is taking viewers inside the White House for a behind-the-scenes look at the Obama Administration, featuring interviews with senior staffers, the First Lady, and POTUS himself. Even the most popular Portuguese Water Dog in the world makes a few cameos. It's sure to be intriguing, especially if any of the cameras got footage of Rahm Emanuel dropping F-bombs, but it's becoming incredibly apparent that Obama's loyalty, at least in TV land, lies with NBC. He must be committed to pulling the network out of their ratings recession, just like he helped out GM yesterday morning.

Read More "‘Inside the Obama White House’: Is Barack Trying to Bail Out NBC, Too?" »

*The President and Vice President supped at Ray's Hell Burger in Arlington yesterday. According to the Post, they went dutch.

*THIS WEEK IN CAL THOMAS: The Washington Times commemorates the 30th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher's election as Prime Minister with a fawning piece whose best moment is its opening anecdote:

The newly elected Mrs. Thatcher takes her all-male Cabinet to dinner. The waiter asks her what she would like to order.

"I'll have the beef," says she.

"What about the vegetables?" asks the waiter.

"They'll have the same."

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: Potentates Like Their Beef" »

Here's the money graph from the Washington Post's special section on President Barack Obama's first 100 days, by veteran political reporter Dan Balz:

Obama also has answered definitively the question of which would take priority -- enacting the broad agenda of health care, energy reform and education that he championed throughout the campaign or responding to the economic crisis that hit in full force as the campaign was ending. Many analysts questioned whether he could do both, given the fiscal implications they would entail. Obama has decided not to choose between them, and he used a recent speech at Georgetown University to argue the case that short-term stimulus without long-term structural reforms of major parts of the economy risks a return to bubble economics.

And there's more where that comes from, too!

Or, rather, the Natinals are.

I still can't find any Nats-related radio or non-cable TV coverage around here.

But Saturday's national broadcast ABC's evening news took time away from reporting on the Obama/Chavez soul shake/thumb war and the heroification of those poor bozos who got pirated by teenage Somalian druggies for some real man-bites-dog material: a segment on the misspellings on the home jerseys of Ryan Zimmerman and Adam Dunn.

The usual suspects on the local scene were already all over VowelGate.

But only in a special season -- the sort of season where 3-run 9th inning leads are blown twice in a weekend - would the mainstream network folks notice this sorta stuff.

This, friends, is going to be a special season.