This cream-filled morsel in the L.A. Times’ Top of the Ticket blog …

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s stumbling Democratic presidential effort paid many millions of donor dollars to consultants for advice that didn’t work, tens of thousands of donor dollars to hotels for uneaten vegetable trays at abandoned victory parties and 1,300 donor dollars just to Dunkin’ Donuts

….got us thinking, mmmmmmm, donuts.

Robin Givhan in Sunday’s Post:

From irreverent blog postings on their campaign Web sites to chatty e-mail blasts, informality has become a way of getting cool credentials. Mike Huckabee hauled out both his bass guitar and Chuck Norris. Musicianship and irony? Surely they are automatic signifiers of cool. Hillary Clinton turned up on “The Tyra Banks Show” and on “Ellen,” bearing a bag of kooky gifts and one-liners that emphatically announced that she can be self-deprecating and wry.

Kitsch may be the more sound investment. It lasts forever. John McCain’s off-key rendition of “Memories” — posted on his Web site — is just as funny in 2008 as it was in 2002 because it’s pure kitsch.

We searched high and low for that McCain video but can’t find it.  Anyone have a YouTube link?

We continue to marvel at old media relying on new media for content.

Witness Sunday’s Washington Post hand-wringing editorial about Barack Obama:

Is he a liberal at heart who tacks occasionally to the center or more of a centrist capable of suppressing leftist instincts when political circumstances demand?

It’s telling, at this relatively late stage in the nominating process, that the answers are not clear — at least not to us. Granted, broad terms such as “liberal” or “conservative” can be more misleading than informative. Mr. Obama himself disparages such labeling as a simplistic enterprise, writing to the liberal Web site Daily Kos that “the whole ‘centrist’ versus ‘liberal’ labels that continue to characterize the debate within the Democratic Party misses the mark.”

When the Post cites Daily Kos — A blog! Egads! — for editorial certification, you know the dog is firmly wagging the tail.

We continue our special in-depth educational series, Meet Your Superdelegates.  A rare chance to get to know specific superdelegates who will be deciding the Democratic presidential nominee.  We’re focusing on party elders, government officials, senior advisors, and other high profile politicians who feature prominently in television and film.  And we boldly speculate who they will back at the Democratic convention.  Today’s superdelegate profile comes from the breakthrough dramatic comedy movie sensation “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”

Patterned after Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson, President Merkin Muffley faces the Soviets through a nuclear crisis during the height of the Cold War.  His indecisiveness and desire to hear all sides and options ad nauseam renders him largely ineffective.  During his administration the Soviet Doomsday Device detonates, destroying most life on planet.  Muffley says,”Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the war room!” — the kind of ironic deadpan diplomacy that earns the respect of Barack Obama, whom he is supporting over Hillary Clinton.

Previous profile: Mayor Ozzie Cleveland from “Hill Street Blues”
Next profile:  Mayor Goldie Wilson from “Back to the Future”

We learn that indicted Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) has 12 kids.  How ironic.  That’s not a family.  That’s a jury.

Think Congress will give him the boot?

Alternatively — here’s a great news tip, as it were.

Letter in the Washington Post:

Mary Ann Akers and Paul Kane [In the Loop, Feb. 14] recounted an anecdote about how Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) lost a finger. “Tonight, the truth will come out,” Emanuel was quoted as saying at a congressional dinner. “It was a bris gone terribly wrong.”

To which the reporters added helpfully, Emanuel “did lose the middle finger of his right hand — but to a meat slicer, not a moyle.”

The Moyle is a lovely river in Ireland. A mohel is the officiant at a bris (circumcision).

– Jerry Filbin

Washington

We’ll let our good friends and colleagues at Not Larry Sabato get all the glory and credit for spotting this one.  As NLS drolly reports:

Del. Lionel Spruill (member of the DNC and automatic Delegate to the national convention supporting Hillary Clinton) explains his bill to ban plastic testicles on the back of trucks.

We continue our special in-depth educational series, Meet Your Superdelegates.  A rare chance to get to know specific superdelegates who will be deciding the Democratic presidential nominee.  We’re focusing on party elders, government officials, senior advisors, and other high profile politicians who feature prominently in television and film.  And we boldly speculate who they will back at the Democratic convention.  Today’s superdelegate profile comes from the breakthrough dramatic TV sensation “Hill Street Blues.”

Ozzie Cleveland is an American city success story.  He starts as a homicide lieutenant, rises to become commander, then Mayor.  His son Lee, however, is a drug addict, and presumably would be covered by Hillary Clinton’s universal health care mandate.  That makes Mayor Cleveland quite supportive of Clinton rather than Barack Obama, whose health care plan probably would let Lee fall through the cracks.  As it were.

Previous profile: Senator Finisterre from “Thank You For Smoking”
Next profile:  President Merkin Muffley from “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”

Hillary Clinton said this about Barack Obama last night:

“And there are differences between our records and our accomplishments. I have to confess, I was somewhat amused, the other night, when, on one of the TV shows, one of Senator Obama’s supporters couldn’t.”

Clunky.  Cloudy.  But a shot nonetheless.

What was Hillary referring to?

We’re guessing this moment with Chris Matthews: