What happens when a candidate wins the presidential race and gets that first top-level security briefing in the Oval Office? The comedian Bill Hicks had a pretty good idea, which he explained not long after Bill Clinton was inaugurated.

"No matter what you promise on the campaign trail," Hicks said in a 1993 routine, "when you win, you go into this smoke-filled room with the 12 industrialist capitalist scum-fucks who got you in there. And you're in this smoky room, and this little film screen comes down, and a big guy with a cigar goes, 'Roll the film.' And it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle [...]

Did you know that our President does lots of things each day? The White House staff photographers knew! And here are Air America's Ana Marie Cox and the Huffington Post's Eat the Press editor Jason Linkins to explain it to us common people. ANA MARIE: Let's start with this basketball picture.

JASON: I encourage Awl readers to enlarge this image, for truly it contains multitudes.

ANA MARIE: In the first place, please note the lack of powerful women at this basketball game.

Did you know that the White House staff photographer shoots Barack Obama every 1.4 seconds? That is a fact. Particularly when our "President" is traveling around the world, representing the interests of Kenya and the health care lobby. And here we have Ana Marie Cox (Daily Beast and Playboy contributor) and Jason Linkins (editor of the Huffington Post's Eat the Press) to make sense of all this abundant photograph evidence for us!

What kind of crazy world do we live in when we can see into the White House each day through The Official White House Photostream? Well a really crazy one. And here we have Ana Marie Cox (Daily Beast and Playboy contributor and Air America hostessess) and Jason Linkins (of the Huffington Post) to annotate it for us.

New York city's Wall Street barons and supermarket baronets and real estate dukes have, it actually seems, been shut down by the White House. (Except for all the ones that work in the White House.) The old-fashioned, Clintonesque Presidential check-receiving tour of Manhattan is donezo! "Speaking on the condition of anonymity to explain the hard feelings toward the president, many of his most generous donors express a more personal grievance, as well: They have been treated like pariahs. Obama has not only denied them government jobs, but thank-you letters and White House invites. He has not anointed a new first couple of fundraising." (It doesn't help that big [...]

Oof, today's White House briefing! It just ended. It is ridiculous, and sort of tense, like alligators wrestling for sex. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs suggests if perhaps there were two restaurants, each would be less expensive! This is a metaphor for healthcare. But people are like, yeah yeah, but is there going to be a "public option." Then Gibbs says: WHAT DID THE PRESIDENT SAY ON SATURDAY? NO NO NO NO, WHAT DID THE PRESIDENT SAY? I think he used the word "essential" someone volunteers! So if he did-GO FIND THE TRANSCRIPT. (Robert Gibbs shininess threat level, by the way: very matte!) YES, JAKE TAPPER? No we have [...]

Robert Gibbs, press secretary for Barack Obama (and former communications guy, lest we forget, for the 2004 anti-Howard Dean brigade!) took to the TV last night after Obama's speech. But you know what? We couldn't actually see him! This is just further proof that there are no homosexuals involved in the Obama White House. Here is what any sensible gay would tell him.

Our nation's greatest resource and triumph: The Official White House Photostream. What a wonderful age in which we live! And here we have Ana Marie Cox (Daily Beast and Playboy contributor) and Jason Linkins (of the Huffington Post) to annotate it for us.

One man stalks our President. His name is Pete Souza. Day and night, he tries to shoot the President, through every opening available. That is what she said, and here are GQ's Ana Marie Cox and the Huffington Post's Eat the Press editor Jason Linkins to explain this man's madness.

Oh boy. My goodness. Good grief! Today at the White House press briefing: "The second announcement is the Senate Democrats will come down to the White House tomorrow and have lunch here with the President.

Q All of them?

MR. GIBBS: All of them.

Q Open press?

MR. GIBBS: Unclear.

Q But we're all invited to the lunch?"

Our White House: really, we should call it the Transparent House, it is so wide-open. Thanks to White House photographer Pete Souza and his friends, every day we see all. Or at least we think we do! And here we have Ana Marie Cox (Daily Beast and Playboy contributor) and Jason Linkins (editor of the Huffington Post's Eat the Press) to interpret the visuals for us.

Air America lady Ana Marie Cox asked about "Don't Ask Don't Tell" at the just-concluded White House press briefing. And, like others before her, she didn't get much of an answer, it sounds like-Obama will work with Congress, blah blah, though apparently the White House spokesman copped to that kicking people out of the military weakened the military. (Awaiting transcript.) If I was super-militaristic and into killing people, I'd be very upset about this whole thing.