Over the weekend Washington Monthly Web Editor Ryan Cooper came a little unglued (this is putting it mildly) when he discovered late Saturday night that the magazine had been compromised. Or at least that’s what he thought.

God fucking dammit, stop hacking our website you assholes

— Ryan L. Cooper (@ryanlcooper) May 19, 2013

He continued by trying to calm himself. “Deep breath,” he wrote. By 10:34 p.m. he appeared to calm down slightly and followed up with this philosophical declaration.

There is a special place in hell for hackers of small, ramshackle websites.

— Ryan L. Cooper (@ryanlcooper) May 19, 201

We also requested comment from Editor-in-Chief Paul Glastris through what is hopefully the publication’s secure generalized email system. Read more

White House Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer didn’t take his Sunday off, instead going on a marathon of five show appearances to discuss the myriad of scandals.

During his TV tour, Pfeiffer was grilled on questions that have been raised over the past week during his tour of shows, which included ABC’s “This Week,” NBC’s “Meet the Press,” CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Fox News’ “Fox News Sunday” and CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Perhaps the most controversial remark made by Pfeiffer was made on “This Week,” when Pfeiffer called the legality of the Justice Department’s subpoena of Associated Press phone records “irrelevant.”

“I can’t speak the law — the law here, but the law is irrelevant,” Pfeiffer said.

When questioned on his comment by host George Stephanopoulos, Pfeiffer clarified that he meant the DOJ’s actions were wrong whether they were legal or not.

“What I mean is that whether it’s legal, or illegal is — is not important to the fact that it — that, the conduct as a matter. The Department of Justice said they’re looking into the legality of this,” Pfeiffer said. “The president is not going to wait for that. We have to make sure it doesn’t happen again regardless of how that turns out.”

Pfeiffer took to Twitter shortly after the interview to make sure his statement wasn’t taken out of context.

Before folks quoting me out of context get too far ahead of themselves, of course the law matters, IRS conduct is wrong even if legal

— Dan Pfeiffer (@pfeiffer44) May 19, 2013

That didn’t stop a storm of Tweets questioning not only Pfeiffer’s competence, but also Obama’s decision to send him on the shows. Read more

Foreign Policy‘s Kevin Baron is headed to Atlantic Media where he’ll be Executive Editor of Defense One, a new brand set to launch this summer.

“Kevin Baron is a rising star in defense media, and we are thrilled to have him leading Defense One,” said Tim Hartman, president of Government Executive Media Group, the division of Atlantic Media responsible for launching Defense One. “Kevin’s innovative digital approach, deep expertise, and pursuit of journalistic excellence make him a perfect fit to lead Defense One’s editorial team.”

Baron is a two-time George Polk Award winner. At Foreign Policy he was a national security reporter and authored the E-Ring blog, covering the Pentagon, defense and national security.

Whatever airline Fox News’ Shannon Bream flew this weekend needs some looking into. The correspondent who primarily covers the Supreme Court flew into DCA this weekend after a visit to Tallahassee and this is what happened.

Bag came down the belt unzipped with clothes falling out. Jewelry gone, but thanks for not stealing the flag from my Dad’s funeral …

— Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) May 19, 2013

Turns out Bream isn’t a huge fan of flying in the first place. A few days earlier, she wrote, “Yeah, not sure how I forget how much I hate flying … until we’re about to take off. #grittingteeth.”

Note: This is a depiction of the suitcase, not the real thing.

Associated Press president and CEO Gary Pruitt told CBS’s “Face The Nation” on Sunday that the DOJ’s secret seizure of two months of phone records was “unconstitutional.”

In his first television appearance since the subpoena was revealed, Pruitt, who worked as a First Amendment lawyer earlier in his career, blasted the Justice Department, saying the First Amendment rights of the AP had been violated.

“And so now they possess the phone records of thousands– thousands of news gathering phone calls of the Associated Press, and they are required to narrow– under their own rules, they are required to narrow these– this request as narrowly as possible, so as to not tread upon the– the First Amendment. And, yet, they had a broad sweeping collection, and they did it secretly. The rules require them to come to us first but in this case, they didn’t, claiming an exception saying that if they had, it would have posed a substantial threat to their investigation.”

Because the seizure of phone records, which included calls to and from cell phones, home phones and office phones belonging to AP and its reporters, was done without the organization being notified, Pruitt said DOJ violated the Constitution. The AP had only been notified after the fact via a letter from the Washington, D.C. U.S. District Attorney.

“I don’t know what their motive is, but I can tell you their actions are unconstitutional. We don’t question their right to conduct these sort of investigations. We just think they went about it the wrong way. So sweeping, so secretively, so abusively, and harassingly and over broad that it constitutes that it– that it is an unconstitutional act.”

Watch the full interview with Bob Schieffer here.

Correction: We incorrectly had an IRS reference in the first graph and have since corrected it.

What is going on with Robert Gibbs? The ex-White House aide appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” today and he looks, well, different. What happened to him? Take a look at him then and now.

Then and now…

Quotes of the Day

“Hmm which to choose?” — ABC’s Martha Raddatz with accompanying photograph.

Reader explains “tricks” scribes use to avoid crediting others

On Friday, WaPo‘s Paul Farhi wrote a story on Politico pulling a video that featured Sen. Min. Leader Mitch McConnell‘s (R-Ky.) COS blowing them love kisses. Turns out may that be against Senate rules, as reported by Roll Call‘s Meredith Shiner. So we wrote about Farhi’s failure to adequately cite Shiner and her story.

An Anonymous reader writes in…“Farhi’s failure to credit Roll Call: He use two of the oldest tricks in the book for skating past the explicit crediting of others: Don’t mention at top, but then mention the name of the news breaking organization without crediting them but attributing some small detail to their reporting. Fig leaf covered! The second dodge is when one your “friends” (your editor) tells you, “Farhi, you got beat on something!) Like the immaculate conception, if you hear it from someone else, then it is no longer breaking news!”

Important Question to Ponder: “Does Gray’s Anatomy have to be so bloody?” — FNC’s Greta Van Susteren.

The Observer

“Well, that was a new one: person in our row at Star Trek got up periodically throughout movie to do lunges in aisle.” — Anna Sproul-Latimer, literary agent.

S.E. Cupp finds perfect hamburger

“Found out the @innoutburger by LAX opens at 10:30 am. Plenty of time to grab a double-double animal style before my flight. #Worththetrip” — MSNBC’s S.E. Cupp.

Journo blows off steam

“Getting some aggression out at the driving range….” — Fox News Senate Producer Kara Rowland.

And another tries to recreate his heart attack

“Where is my ambulance? I think this is the widow maker – jk” — Mediaite White House Correspondent Tommy Christopher.

Producer looks to Trumps for finer things in life

“Got fabulous @IvankaTrump shoes this wk & delicious wine from @trumpwinery last wk. They sure make some good stuff. @realDonaldTrump” — WMAL Executive Producer Heather Smith.

Guiding Sophia’s Light

“New Golden Rule 21st Century style: I will do To you before you can do it to me! I will burn you before you can break me. I ain’t no punk.” — Essence and theGrio‘s Sophia Nelson.

See more Morning Chatter…

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Politiics & Prose is revealing an artsier side to Washington with a new in-house printed literary journal. The idea is to show that Washington isn’t all politicians, lobbyists and lawyers.

District Lines, according to a release, is edited by Susan Coll and contains essays, short fiction, poems, sketches and photography on quirky and serious subjects ranging from a sighting of Effi Barry on a Metro bus to an August night on the Q Street Bridge to hotcakes at the Florida Avenue Grill to an ode to the Dupont Circle metro escalator.

Contributors will read from it on June 15 at the book shop. The cost of the journal: $15. It goes on sale today.

“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough has an obsession with Kate Upton, and he’s not shy about it.

Scarborough mentioned the name of the model (and niece of Rep. Fred Upton (R-Fla.), with whom Scarborough served in Congress) multiple times throughout this morning’s show on MSNBC. As the guests were being introduced, which included GQ’s Michael Hainey, Scarborough excitedly hoped for photos of Upton.

“I bet he has pictures of Kate Upton in there,” Scarborough said, referencing Hainey.

Shortly after, he added “I’m actually searching for those photos as we speak.”

It didn’t end there.

Read more

Throughout ABC’s political drama “Scandal,” the second season of which ended Thursday, it’s been apparent that the writers often have little to no idea how the news media based in D.C. actually works.

In one episode you have a high-profile news anchor sitting on a story that involves a president refusing to be seen until all of his hair grows back on his newly-bald head. That would never happen. Bald or not, the story would fly.

In another episode, the news media is seen waiting for Olivia Pope, the show’s main character, outside her client’s home. Pope waits until the top of the hour when all the TV reporters need to go live. She breezily slips past them. Where were the print reporters and bloggers who would also have been waiting? Apparently forgotten about by the “Scandal” writers. Even the TV reporters would have people who would approach Pope even if they couldn’t during their live shots.

But in the finale, the show finally gets it right.

Pope, who has been able to keep her affair with the married President FitzGerald Grant a secret this whole time, is shown in the final scene walking through her apartment building lobby with a satisfied smile on her face before setting out on a run outdoors. She had just quashed the biggest scandal of the season, one that would have likely ended in the impeachment of the president.

As Pope throws open the doors she’s greeted by… Read more