People were shocked when President Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace prize today for his initiatives to reduce nuclear weapons, reduce conflict in the Muslim world, and promote worldwide diplomacy. Why so shocking, since these are Nobel-worthy causes? Because Obama had only been in office for two weeks before the February 1 Nobel nomination deadline. The Nobel Committee doesn’t seem to think it’s a problem. They attribute a change in global mood to Obama’s calls for peace and cooperation, even though his initiatives have not yet had the time “to bear fruit.” So what do you think? Does he deserve the award? [MSNBC]

After the jump, see how Obama stacks up to the other presidents that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

What’s the best way to get press coverage before an election? A scandal, of course! Take, for example, East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer, who has been blowing up since photos of him in drag surfaced on the web. What a coincidence that it’s just days before his primary election! While Brewer won’t confirm that the photos are actually of him (umm ... they look exactly like him), he kind of gives himself away saying, “You need a sex scandal to get to the next level.” Maybe he’ll be running on the ticket as Erica Brewer? [BuzzFeed]

John Edwards, step aside with your little scandal. After the jump, some more shady mayors.

Chris Andersen’s biography of the Obamas, Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage, comes out today, and in it he dishes on a lot more than the first couple’s date night. According to Andersen, women are constantly rubbing up against Barack, slipping him their digits, and whispering suggestive comments in his ear. “On more than one occasion, Barack tried not to look startled when some random woman in the crowd would grasp him firmly by the derriere—and sometimes try to hold on,” writes Andersen. After one rally on the campaign trail, Barack supposedly said, “Jesus, I wish they’d stop grabbing my ass.”

A new book says Michelle Obama advised Barack Obama to use “Yes, we can!” as a campaign slogan, even though the president apparently hated his chief advisor David Alexrod’s catchphrase. According to Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage, by Christopher Anderson, the president dissed the now-famous slogan, calling it “childish” and “corny,” and insisted, “I don’t like it.” Barack then ordered his staff to think up a better slogan, but Michelle assured her hubby, “It will work. Trust me.” Smart lady! Anderson also says that Michelle put the kibosh picking on Hillary Clinton as a vice presidential candidate and urged her husband to pick Joe Biden as a running mate instead. “Do you really want Bill and Hillary just down the hall from you in the White House? Could you live with that?”, she allegedly told Barack. (Guess he couldn’t.) We always knew Michelle was one of the president’s greatest assets!  [Times of London]

The Free Speech Coalition, the adult industry trade association, has named Hustler founder and publisher Larry Flynt as the recipient of its annual Legacy Award, to be presented at the 2009 FSC Awards in Los Angeles on November 14.

Hustler Magazine celebrated its 35th birthday this year in July with a special anniversary issue and a VIP birthday bash. Flynt might just be the best friend the First Amendment has ever had, and he’s certainly helped pave the way for much of modern adult entertainment as we now know it. Continue reading...

Her hubby Vince may have been the chairman willing to jump in the ring and get hit over the head with a metal folding chair, but, behind the scenes, Linda McMahon has been the one running the WWE as its CEO for the past 12 years. Having already smacked down wrestling‘s glass ceiling, Linda is now setting her sights higher. She wants to run for the U.S. Senate. While Vince is slipping into her chief executive chair, Linda is throwing her hat in the ring for a 2010 run for Congress. She has her eye on Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd’s seat. But first, in the Republican primary she’ll have to pin down economist Peter Schiff, who famously predicted the pop of the U.S. housing bubble and has been whoring himself out to fake news shows ever since. We think they should just take it to the ring—Linda has to have picked up some moves from Chyna. Oh, wait, maybe Linda can form a tag team with Stormy Daniels?

I can fully admit it—I drink three, sometimes even four, Diet Cokes a day. We have a fridge full of them here at the Frisky office and my DC consumption is nothing compared to Amelia’s—she perpetually has a small tribe of cans on her desk. So we were both a little concerned when we heard that many public health officials, including one group who just published an article in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, are calling for a soda tax. Apparently, the idea is picking up steam—53 percent of Americans think a soda tax is a good idea and Barack Obama recently said that he thinks we should be exploring one. “It’s really a double-win,” said Dr. David Ludwig, one of the authors of the New England Journal report. “We can raise much-needed dollars while likely reducing obesity prevalence, which is a major driver of health care costs. In terms of ways of raising that revenue, a tax on sugar sweetened beverages is really a no-brainer.” [ABC News]

How retro. The FCC has proclaimed that it would like to “further investigate” Nipplegate, i.e., the moment in 2004 when Justin Timberlake pulled at Janet Jackson‘s costume during the Super Bowl halftime show, baring her pierced nipple and traumatizing children for years, even though a commercial for Viagra that made reference to a “four-hour erection” aired during the same program and apparently had no adverse effect. The FCC has brought their complaint all the way up to the Third District Appeals Court, hoping that the case can be reopened. “The evidence in this case strongly suggests that CBS had access to video delay technology at the time of the 2004 Super Bowl,” the FCC said. In other words, they think the nip slip was “willfull.” Really? Does anyone still care about this? And doesn’t our government have better things to be spending its time on? [Gawker]

“Wait till her fat keister is sitting at this desk,’ [George W. Bush] once said [of Hillary Clinton] (except he didn’t say ‘keister’).”

—from “Me Talk Presidential One Day,” by former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer, GQ

I don’t even have time to list all the politicians who’ve been caught having affairs in recent years. But at least Mark Sanford and John Edwards had the good sense not to talk about their dalliances on tape. California State Assemblyman Mike Duvall, a self-stated “family values warrior” who recently won the Ethics in America award, forgot that he was wearing a microphone when, before an assembly meeting, he dished all the dirty deets of his affair(s) to an assembly buddy. “I’ve been getting into spanking her,” he said on the recording. “I like it!” [CNN]

If you’ve got $25,000 burning a whole in your pocket—and frankly, who doesn’t in this economy—I’ve got the perfect way for you to spend it. No, not by giving it to me, though that would be cool too. You should put in a bid on eBay to win a dinner for five with Sarah and Todd Palin. The auction will start next Tuesday, and bidding will begin at $25K. The proceeds from the auction will go to Ride 2 Recovery, a charity for wounded veterans. If you bid, just hope that Sarah and Todd stay together long enough to make it to your swinging soiree.

If the thought of having dinner with the Palins makes you want to scream, perhaps you’d prefer to bid $7,500 on a lunch with Karl Rove? Anyone? [CNN]

If you don’t know who Reggie Love is, get with the program, girls. Generally speaking, he’s President Obama‘s right-hand man, otherwise known as a “body man,” the president’s special assistant and aide. He grew up in North Carolina, went to Duke, where he played on the basketball team, and came to Capitol Hill on an internship in 2006. Now, he’s regularly at Obama’s side, attending to the Big Man’s every need, whether that’s keeping him on schedule or shooting some hoops (I imagine he lets Barry win at least some of the time). But what Love does best is look good doing it. Thankfully, it’s never too late for a “Summer of Love” slideshow.

For the first time since they arrived back in the U.S. a month ago, journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee have written up their account of exactly what happened to them in North Korea. This part of the story we already knew: The two were in China reporting for a piece about North Korean women who were fleeing across the border, only to find that their lives in China were pretty miserable and that they were hungry, victims of violence, and often ended up stripping online.

But what we didn’t know is exactly how their arrest happened and whether they did in fact cross into Kim Jong Il land.

Supposedly, disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is considering another run for public office, and the mother of the call girl at the center of the scandal that brought down the “Love Gov” is speaking out. In an interview with the New York Post, Ashley Dupre‘s mother, Carolyn Capalbo, opined of Spitzer’s slow-but-steady career resurrection: “Only in America.” Dupre, in contrast, is “having a rough go”; surely, coming back from being outed as a sex worker who brought down a politician is no easy feat. A friend of Dupre pointed out that in this case the woman gets the short end of the stick: “The woman always ends up the filthy, marked whore and he ends up coming back the savior of politics.” Dupre may have gotten paid, but it seems she’s the one paying now. [New York Post]

All summer, folks have been speculating that Chelsea Clinton will be tying the knot with Marc Mezvinsky on Martha’s Vineyard. And the New York Post believes that it will be happening any second—a reporter saw a ginormous stage being built on the property Bill Clinton supposedly rented on Chappaquiddick island. [New York Post]

First, we had to swear off “The View” when we found out that Kate Gosselin and Meghan McCain would be sitting down at the table with Joy, Whoopi, et al. Now, “The Today Show” is gonna be off limits, too. Guess who they’ve hired to be a special correspondent, reporting a story per month? Jenna Bush. Yep, the Bush twin who made underage drinking an artform and who consistently drove her secret service detail batty. Here’s what Jenna, who also managed to squeeze a book deal out of the whole being-a-former-president’s-daughter thing, had to say about her new gig. “It wasn’t something I’d always dreamed to do. But I think one of the most important things in life is to be open-minded and to be open-minded for change.” Uh, Jenna? Your puppy didn’t just die—you just got the ultimate cushy gig hosting on one of the most popular shows on television. If you’re not feeling it, I could find you, uh, thousands of broadcast journalism majors who’d be down. [People]

In the West African country of Gabon, Rose Francine Rogombe has been in power since June, when President Omar Bongo Ondimba died. And this weekend, there’s an election that will determine whether she stays at the helm of the country. Guess what some Gabonese men are willing to do if a man defeats her in the election? “Sleep with their clothes on.” That’s right girls ... they’re going on a sex strike. Why? Because the leader of the Gabonese Liberation Movement, Samuel Ntoutoume Ndzeng, says the men will strike because “the power must remain with women.” I am totally pumping my fist right now—I don’t care who laughs at me. [AFP]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has nominated three women to serve in his cabinet. This sounds amazing on the first read, but don’t get too excited—many people believe this move is totally self-serving. Ahmadinejad is likely trying to take support away from his rival, relatively liberal and pro-women candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who most likely actually won the contested June election that spawned many violent protests. Although the nominations may make Ahmadinejad seem more moderate and less like a holdover from the Stone Age, female activists say the appointments will hurt, not help, their cause and think that the three women Ahmadinejad picked will basically serve as his puppets.

It’s easy to remember Edward Kennedy for the soap opera that was his life: His two brothers were assassinated five years apart; he survived a plane crash in 1964; he lost two beloved nephews in rapid succession in the 1990s; and rumors of alcoholism constantly followed him. And when I say the words “Ted Kennedy” and “women” in the same sentence, only one probably comes to mind: Mary Jo Kopechne, the 28-year-old campaign aide he was probably trying to sleep with, who was sitting in the passenger seat of his Oldsmobile when it careened into a river on Martha’s Vineyard in 1969. Kennedy escaped from the car and left Mary Jo behind, not calling the police until after her body had been discovered. (Required reading: Joyce Carol Oates’ Black Water, which tells the story, fictionalized of course, from her perspective.) To say it wasn’t his best moment is a gross understatement.

Yes, these are the details about Ted Kennedy that are titillating to talk about. But since the announcement of his death this morning, I’ve found myself thinking about the not-so-salacious details: his record over his 46 years in the Senate. For a dude, Ted did a heck of a lot for us ladies.

In a controversial move, the Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that judges can force Muslim women to take off their headscarves in court. The law says they can exercise “reasonable control over the appearance of parties and witnesses” so that the “demeanor of such persons may be observed and assessed by the fact-finder and ensure the accurate identification.” Translation of the legal mumbo jumbo: they have to take off their headscarves so the judge can be sure they’re actually who they say they are.