“She is the first female in politics that is good looking. It’s an amazing phenomenon.”
– guest CNBC’s Donny Deutsch on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” talking about FNC Contributor Sarah Palin.

Birthday Shout-Out: Happy Birthday to Politico’s Executive Editor Jim VandeHei. He turns 39 today.

The Coelacanth fish is not typically eaten as it emits a foul flavor. It is said to be coveted by museums and private collectors.

Sean Medlock (AKA “Jim Treacher”), blogger for the Daily Caller is typically a well-humored guy and says it is what’s helping him cope since being struck by an SUV driven by a State Department security agent. That male employee was not cited, nor provided his information. Instead, Treacher was cited with what he calls a “fact deficient” jaywalking citation in the ER. Treacher was released from the hospital Tuesday after knee surgery that resulted in a pulmonary embolism. He’s cutting down on the ice skating and kick-boxing and is staying in an “undisclosed hotel location”. More seriously, he will have to use crutches and for longer voyages, a wheelchair.

1. How are you feeling since being released from the hospital Tuesday? Surprisingly not-awful. The knee still hurts, but most of the time when it’s still, it’s more of a constant burning sensation than a sharp pain. Dr. Wiesel and Dr. Remington and everybody else at Georgetown University Hospital did a great job of getting me back on my feet. Well, foot. I’m going to be doing physical therapy for the broken knee, which is already helping, and taking blood thinners for the pulmonary embolism that resulted from the knee injury and surgery. They’re going to be monitoring that at least once a week. So there’s still a lot of work to do, but I’m more than willing to do it. As for who’s going to pay for it all…

2. Can you walk around and are you on crutches? Is your boss, Tucker Carlson, carrying your bag and getting you food? Crutches, which I’m trying to master. I can’t put full weight on my left foot for at least three months. I’ve also got a wheelchair, in the unfortunate event that I need to go outside. No plans to do that anytime soon. Tucker’s been busy this week trying to find out who hit me and how the whole thing went down. He and Neil Patel and Moira Bagley and Laura Banos stayed in the ER with me all Wednesday night last week. And everybody at the Daily Caller has been terrific. Almost everybody I’ve talked to has been great, actually. What was the question? I’m on painkillers because a State Dept. security agent named Mike McGuinn hit me with a government SUV.

3. What do you think ought to happen to the State Department agent who hit you? Have they reached out to apologize? Do you plan to sue? Considering Mike McGuinn broke the law when he hit me and failed to identify himself to me or provide contact information, he should be subject to the same laws as everyone else in DC. Maybe that’s because I’m new here. No, nobody at State has apologized. As for suing, I just got out of the hospital and I don’t know yet. Right now I’m getting a lot of advice and I’m trying to sort through it.

Read more Treacherific details, including a word on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, after the jump…

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Quote(s) of the Day
“As long as she’s writing reminders on her hand may I suggest one more: buy condoms.”
– Bill Maher, host of HBO’s “Real Time with Maher”, tweeted on Fox News Contributor Sarah Palin.

“Gibbs I gotta tell you something, you’re no Sarah Palin.”
– FNC’s Sean Hannity, in defense of Palin on his show last night, referring to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Gibbs was perceived as mocking Palin in Tuesday’s briefing by jotting notes on his hand, which Palin did during the Tea Party Convention in Nashville.

Quote of the Day
“VandeHei and O’Reilly go at it. Lots of yelling. VandeHei wins (he IS my boss you know).”
– Martin Kady, Politico’s Congressional Bureau Chief, on Twitter last night after his boss, Executive Editor Jim VandeHei, engaged in a fiery exchange on FNC’s “The O’Reilly Factor” with host Bill O’Reilly. The argument involved journalists’ coverage of FNC Contributor Sarah Palin and The Tea Party Convention.

This Surgeonfish can be found in the Caribbean or the Indian Ocean. In terms of temperament, “territorial aggression” can ensue.

Former V.P. hopeful and FNC contributor Sarah Palin told “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace that if she didn’t run for president she’d do the best “darn good job” as a reporter.

Well it turns out that Palin, with all her dang, darn, heck, hell no, bull-stuff and you betcha’s earned Wallace his best show ratings ever this past Sunday in his six years hosting the show. She explained the e-mail “issue” involving her husband, Todd, whom she referred to as “Alaska’s first dude,” she re-issued her call for White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to resign for using the phrase “f–king retarded” and analyzed the GOP presidential field, which included herself.

Wallace interviewed Palin in Nashville, where she was keynoting the National Tea Party Convention.

Nielsen reports show Wallace’s high ratings with 132,000 viewers and a 4.2 Household rating – record-breaking numbers for the show in D.C. In the demographic (25-54), “Fox News Sunday” had 58,000 viewers, beating all three shows — NBC’s “Meet the Press”, CBS’s “Face the Nation” and ABC’s “This Week”.

Watch the video here.

From ThinkProgress.org: Amanda Terkel gives us this gem from this morning’s Imus interview with “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace. This Sunday FNC contributor Sarah Palin will appear for the first time in her new capacity on “Fox News Sunday”.

IMUS: When you interview her, will she be sitting on your lap? (LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: One can only hope. (LAUGHTER)

Imus’s response to that: “Oh man, thank you.”

See the full story and video here.

It was a Mardi Gras-themed party to be sure. Partygoers at The Daily Caller’s second big soiree got a bit raucous last night during the new publication’s SOTU watch party held at George in Georgetown.

Most of the publication’s journos were on hand wearing beads around their necks. Big star Editor-in-Chief Tucker Carlson arrived after 9 p.m. due to a previous speaking engagement at the Metropolitan Club. Co-creator and publisher Neil Patel was there mingling along with opinion editor Moira Bagley and spokeswoman and booker Becca Glover Watkins.

Things got dicey when Carlson arrived with his wife, Susie. Carlson told FishbowlDC that Susie initially couldn’t get in because she didn’t have ID to prove her age – which is 41. So how’d she get in? “I finally said, come on guys, knock it off,” Carlson said.

By that point, the party was in full swing and packed with a decisively beer-drinking crowd. All five TV’s were turned to Fox News. Partygoers booed Obama on several occasions, with one male yelling out, “Show us your tits!” Daily Caller journos shuddered in response to the remark. Another shouted, “Boring!” When FNC contributor Sarah Palin came on to speak, the crowd whooped with joy. “Thishh ishh a right-leaning crowd,” said one attendee who’d obviously had more than a few beers.

Nevertheless, Patel said he has received no complaints that the Daily Caller sways right. Instead, he said, people remark on the “breadth” of stories they have.

Jim Treacher, the Daily Caller’s blogger, more often known as “Treach”, live-blogged the evening, which was a sight to see. “I’m blogging like a mother f-ker,” he said.

The emcee for the evening was Mark Stern (aka “Nigel” of the Tony Kornheiser show), who happens to be Carlson’s old high school roommate at the boarding school, St. George’s. “I remember the first time he wore a bow tie,” Stern told the crowd. “It was at Chippendales. No one can shake their ass like Tucker Carlson.” Later Stern asked rhetorically, “Who said Washington has no balls? Give it up for Daily Caller!”

Sadly, advice columnist Matt Labash was unable to make it – he’s in Haiti. “No parties for me,” he wrote by e-mail. “Just dead people and malaria.”

Guests in attendance: Politics Daily’s Helena Andrews, GOP commentator Doug Heye (who was interviewed there by a German TV station), GOP lobbyist Juleanna Glover, Politico’s Kiki Ryan, Washingtonian publisher Cathy Merrill Williams, Pundit Amy Holmes, Reason magazine editor Michael Moynihan, TNR’s James Kirchick, The Atlantic’s Chris Bodenner, The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack, The Hill’s Christina Wilkie, former Bush speechwriter John McConnell, and Roll Call’s Elizabeth Brotherton. Neshan Naltchayan, a freelance photographer who worked as a photographer in the Bush White House, was there to snap pictures.

See party pictures after the jump…

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FNC’s newest contributor Sarah Palin has thoughts on journalism and she voiced them on Oprah’s “Friday Live” show.

Palin believes in a bare bones style of journalism. She emphasized the “who, what, when, where and why” aspects of reporting that she says she learned when she studied journalism. “Just the facts,” Palin told Oprah, “gathering that information and letting the reader decide … ratcheting back to the simplicity of journalism.”

Palin plans to host an occasional program on FNC called “Real American Stories.”

In an unrelated note, Bristol Palin, who appeared alongside her mother, has the same “ing” issue as her mom — she’s not fond of tagging g’s onto her ing-words.

“Hi, how’s it goin’?” Bristol said, greeting Oprah.
The young woman then described a typical day in life:
“Gettin’ Tripp ready, giving him a bath…goin’ off to work, workin’, comin’ home, giving him another bath, gettin’ him ready for bed, feedin’ him.”

Oprah then asked the most dire question of the hour: “Are babies really that dirty?”

“Sarah and I are going to chat,” says Oprah, promo-ing her upcoming “Fridays Live” show in which she interviews former V.P. hopeful and FNC contributor Sarah Palin. The show airs tomorrow, Jan. 22.

Oprah will also interview Bristol Palin for a chat about that whole teen pregnancy thing.

See the announcement here.

Time magazine’s Mark Halperin and John Heileman , co-authors of Game Change, give us a story today on former V.P. hopeful Sarah Palin in the ’08 campaign and her new role at Fox News.

The story is online today and in the magazine tomorrow.

An excerpt: “That other McCain aides have kept quiet for so long about Palin owes to two factors. The first is loyalty to McCain … But the second reason is equally significant and a harbinger of the fights to come in the Republican Party: a deep fear of the Palin forces. Intimidated by the rabidness of her supporters, believing that they can’t be swayed by facts and worried about getting crosswise with the most highly energized part of the Republican base, McCainworld has allowed her version of reality to go largely unchallenged-and her rise to continue unchecked.”

Time’s Managing Editor Richard Stengel interviews the authors about Game Change in this video.