But if Santorum is excited, New Hampshire residents are something else — terrified. They saw how Santorum went to as many venues as possible in Iowa, connecting personally with as many voters as he could. They’re scared of him doing the same thing in their state.

“I don’t know that I want him that physically close to me, like even up on a stage fifty or so yards away,” said Alan Edgall, 72, who has lived in Nashua all his life. “I mean, if he’s on TV, I guess that’s okay. But I don’t want to actually have to meet him, shake his hand. That’s too much.”

Residents may have a strong chance at avoiding an encounter with Santorum here. He only arrived on Wednesday, and the lack of both time and a campaign infrastructure in New Hampshire means he won’t be able to mount the kind of 99-county marathon he staged in Iowa. But campaign representatives said he does have plans to spend the next week engaging in the kind of meet-and-greet events that won him such a strong showing in Iowa. That means he’ll be traveling around the state, going to diners, pizza parlors and bars. So he’s certain to run into at least some of these less-than-enthused New Hampshire-ites.

But as Lonnie Francino, 63, said, he also has something of a blaring alarm that will precede him wherever he goes — the news media that is suddenly so interested in him.

“We’ll just look for those cameras and news vans and what have you,” Francino said. “And we won’t go into that particular place. I mean, I love the Golden Pantry Diner, but I come there and I see these news trucks and whatnot, that’ll mean he could be in there. And that means I can find somewhere else to get my Denver omelette.”

“It’s like, I don’t trust it,” Jeffrey said. “I mean, it’s there for the taking, but it’s too obvious. It’s too easy. It feels like a trap.”

Other comedians agreed. Mitch Hargerson, a former writer for The Late Show with David Letterman, said he was tempted to write jokes about the Weiner scandal that took advantage of the congressman’s name, but then thought better of it.

“I was right there, right on the edge,” he said. “But then my alarm bells went off and these huge red flags were screaming, ‘Too easy! Too easy! Pull back!’ So I went back to Sarah Palin. She never disappoints.”

“I am voting yes on this bill because on an issue such as this, I felt I must vote my conscience. Or whatever that thing’s called. The thing that tells you what’s right and wrong. Your, your moral center. Whatever they call doing what that thing tells them to do when they vote, that’s what I’m doing.”

Mr. Armon denied that he is now voting for the bill because he has been promised a spot on the House Ethics Committee.

“My vote has nothing whatsoever to do with promises or deals or anything of that nature,” he said. “Unless you count the promise I made to the American people, and the people of Virginia’s 12th district. And my conscience. Then it is about promises. Because when I promise my conscience something, boy, I deliver. I don’t disappoint my conscience. Because, you know, when you disappoint your conscience… you… um… Look, all I know is I’m voting my conscience. Unless that doesn’t mean what I think it means, in which case I’m not doing that.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would neither confirm or deny that Armon has been offered a spot on the Ethics Committee. She would only say that he was voting for the bill because he thought he was doing the right thing.

“Representative Armon is voting for health care reform because he believes in health care reform,” Pelosi said. “He believes in health care reform in his heart. Or wherever people believe in things.”

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin posted what is being hailed as a “masterpiece” of the genre of Facebook status updates Tuesday, wowing both literary critics and fans alike. The post has received millions of views and sparked questions about Palin’s political future.

“Today is a day for freedom,” Palin’s post began. “Isn’t that what’s so great about America?!!?! Freedom! I love freedom. And I know you do, too. You know who doesn’t? The Washington bureaucrats. They don’t see freedom the same way you and I do. They don’t value it. They just say the word, but they don’t feel it down deep inside.”

The post was part an expression of thanks to her many fans in the social networking community, and part mission statement.

“I’m going to do everything in my power to see that your freedoms are protected,” she wrote. “I may not be a governor anymore, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped working for you. I haven’t. And I never will. I’ll keep fightin’ till the sun don’t shine.”

The post transcends the normal limitations of the Facebook update genre, says Earl Ablenon, Professor of English at Duke University and an author of several biographies of famous American authors.

“She has done something quite unusual here, even for her,” Ablenon said. “She has combined the simple, conversational tone with…well, with more simple, conversational tone. It’s like nothing I’ve seen in all my years studying literature.”

Ablenon cited specific parts of the post as examples.

“This right here,” he said, pointing to a particular point within the post, on his computer monitor. “This is a type of phrasing I have never seen before: ‘When the bureaucrats run things, that means more of the same, for sure, for ever. For sure.’ I mean, the repeated use of ‘for sure,’ and the off placement of ‘forever.’ Extraordinary.”

“We think Mr. Gonzalez will do a splendid job taking over for Lou Dobbs, though those are not easy shoes to fill,” said CNN spokesman Brad Longfrey. “Mr. Gonzalez knows the ins and outs of the immigration debate very well, being an illegal immigrant himself, and he has built up a large and loyal following on his internet radio program, ‘Luis in the Morning.’ We are very excited.”

Mr. Dobbs had no comment when reached at his office.

When asked why the show will retain the title ‘Lou Dobbs Tonight’ when Mr. Dobbs is no longer part of the show, Mr. Longfrey said, “It’s name recognition. Why build up a whole new name brand with Gonzalez, when you can have him come in and take advantage of all the hard work Mr. Dobbs has already done?”

“First of all, why shouldn’t corporations be allowed to vote?” Sen. Inhofe asked rhetorically. “It makes no sense. They’re entities, just like people are entities. But they’re bigger entities. They have sometimes thousands upon thousands of people working for them. So, if anything, they should get several votes, not just one.”

Corporations are considered “legal persons” and are already afforded several rights under the U.S. Constitution, including a limited right to free speech and to sue and be sued. They are not, however, allowed to vote in elections or to contribute directly to political campaigns.

Inhofe’s proposal suggests that in a given election, a corporation would have all its employees vote internally first. Those votes would then be tallied, and whichever candidate garnered the most votes would receive the one vote of the corporation.

“I mean, you don’t know how the corporation will vote,” Inhofe said. “You may have the CEO vote one way, but the corporation as a whole says, ‘No, you know what? I feel this way.’ Now, you’re saying, ‘Well, Senator, it wouldn’t say it, because it’s a thing, not a person.’ But I say to you, one of these days, I wouldn’t be surprised if corporations started talking. I can see it. I really can. And you know what? If it’s within my power to try to make that happen, I certainly will.”

Inhofe, one of the most outspoken gay marriage opponents in the U.S. Congress, feels that homosexuals in America should not be allowed to vote because of the risk of their thinking being “clouded and confused.”

“When you’re a homosexual, you see everything through that prism,” Inhofe said. “You can’t escape it. So when you walk up to the voting booth, if the curtains are a really pretty color, a homosexual man might be sidetracked by that, and then be unable to focus when it comes time to actually enter his vote. He’s all discombobulated and seeing three of everything because his mind is still on the fabric of the curtains. I’m telling you, this type of thing is well-documented.”

Inhofe envisions a future where corporations have rights that more closely resemble those of actual people, while the freedoms homosexuals enjoy are scaled back significantly.

“I hope to one day see two corporations marrying one another,” Inhofe said, “while on Capitol Hill, a law is passed barring homosexuals from visiting each other in the hospital. That’s the dream.”

Washington – A publicist for Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine has confirmed that the senator is leaving the so-called ‘Gang of Six’ senators to pursue a career forming legislation outside the group.

“The time has come for Senator Snowe to move on,” Jeffrey Amle, the publicist, said. “She has nothing but the utmost respect for the rest of the ‘Gang,’ but there comes a point where you have to look at yourself and be honest with yourself, and when the senator did that, she realized that if she was going to grow, she needed to pursue opportunities on her own. If she didn’t honor that desire, she’d just wind up resenting herself and the group down the road anyway.”

Sen. Snowe had become the unquestioned breakout star of the bipartisan group of centrist and conservative senators on the Senate Finance Committee. She made headlines when she cast the only Republican vote in favor of a health care reform plan favored by Democrats, and she has emerged as one of the key players in the overall debate.

Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and a member of the Gang of Six, said he would miss Sen. Snowe, but he understood her decision.

“Look, we all kind of saw that she had reached that point where was bigger than the rest of the group,” Baucus said. “It’s time for her to spread her wings. I wish her the best.”

The remaining members of the Gang of Six are considering several options for changing their name, according to people familiar with the discussions. One option under consideration is the “Gang of Five.” Another is “Five Guys in the Middle,” since now the group consists solely of men.

Mr. Amle said Sen. Snowe will not be leaving the Finance Committee, and she will “certainly stay a senator.”

“Senator Snowe is more committed than ever to working on behalf of the people of Maine in the Senate Finance Committee, and in the Senate generally,” Mr. Amle said. “Nothing’s changed, except that now she’s Senator Olympia Snowe, instead of One of the Senators From That Group.”

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said today’s negotiations were difficult, but productive.

“What we did was we put in the time, we worked through our differences as best we could, and at the end of the day we came out with a new conviction that we can get something atrocious to the President by the end of this month,” Grassley said. “This is proof that when we want to make something awful, we can work together to get it done.”

Leading Democrats agreed. Senator Charles Schumer of New York, who has pushed for the inclusion of a public option in health care reform legislation, said that while he still has many differences with Republicans, both parties share a common goal.

“When it comes down to it, we both want the same thing,” Schumer said. “We both want to get something horrendous to President Obama by the end of this month. We’ve made a commitment to do that, and I think we’re unified in our desire to meet that commitment.”

Reaching the stated goal will require first reaching consensus on separate bills in each chamber, then combining the resulting two bills into one piece of legislation. House Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was confident the parties could work together to accomplish what he admitted was a difficult task in the time frame they’ve come up with.

“It will be a challenge, there’s no question about it,” McConnell said. “But I think if we can think, ‘make it shitty, make it terrible,’ and just keep that in our minds as we’re negotiating and crafting the legislation, I think we can get it done in that time frame. The key is to keep it terrible. Everything flows from that.”

“It was 2006 when we first suspected he might be dead,” one former aide said. “February of 2006. He suddenly took on a kind of ghostly pallor, and never ate anything. I accidentally touched his arm once when reaching for some papers and it was cold. Ice cold.”

The aides say they believe Mr. Grassley may be unable to relate to the needs most Americans have for health care coverage because he doesn’t need any health coverage himself.

“It may a type of bias on his part, I think, because he’s probably dead,” the aide said. “He doesn’t understand the perspective of living people, and I almost got the feeling he held it against them that they need medical attention.”

A second aide concurred. “I mean, even before, he got the government-supplied health care because he was a member of Congress, so it might have been hard to relate to the average person even then. But now, what does he care how much a doctor’s visit costs? He’s not going to a doctor. Ever.”

Reached in his Washington office, Mr. Grassley would not confirm or deny that he is currently alive.

“The important thing for the American people and for my constituents to know is that I am serving their interests as a United States senator to the best of my ability,” he said. “Alive or dead doesn’t make a difference.”

Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, said the decision to let the executives shape the legislation was made because so much of the bill is already written to favor the health insurance industry.

“What we figured was, we’re on vacation, and the bill is basically being written for them anyway,” said Conrad. “So while we’re gone, why not have them come in, if they’re willing, and do some work on it themselves? That way we’re that much closer to it being the bill they want when we get back.”

Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine agreed.

“It just makes sense,” she said. “In addition to being able to have the bill move forward during our break, it also saves the step of us having to go in, pretend we’re really negotiating a bill based on what we believe in and what our constituents want, and then call the insurance guys and see if what we’re doing is okay. This way, there’s no discrepancy between what they want in the bill and what is actually in the bill. And the room gets used, which is nice.”

“I think the guy from Aetna’s in my chair,” said Conrad.

The senators also agreed that it was unclear what would happen when they return from vacation.

“I assume we’ll go back to ‘negotiating’ the bill, or whatever you want to call it,” Conrad said. “But that’s only if they want us to. I mean, if they want to stay and keep working on it, that’s fine with me. We’ll hang out and wait till we hear from them. Hopefully they’ll do the whole thing without us.”

The White House did not identify the woman except to say she was “a dedicated member of the White House cleaning staff for over 12 years” in a statement released Tuesday afternoon.

Mr. Emanuel said it was approximately 2:15 PM when he looked up from some reading materials to see the woman dusting a table where his briefcase sat. Realizing the briefcase had been left open, he asked the woman if she had seen what was inside.

“She hesitated,” Mr. Emanuel said. “She said, ‘Uh–No.’ And I knew. She had seen the documents. And therefore, I had to dispose of her as quickly and as quietly as possible.”

Mr. Emanuel said he simply walked up to the woman and put his hands around her neck. He continued to apply pressure, dropping down onto the floor with her as she fell, until she had stopped breathing completely.

“It was very quick, very simple,” Mr. Emanuel said. “All one motion, very fluid.”

And then it was done, he said. “I made some calls to take care of odds and ends, and we were back to work within a half hour. I can’t help wanting to brag about how efficiently it was handled.”

Mr. Emanuel was asked if he felt any remorse for his actions, especially considering the fact that the woman only saw the documents in question because Mr. Emanuel left his briefcase open on the table.

“No. No remorse,” he said. “Look, was it my mistake, leaving the thing open? Yeah. But I’m not going to strangle myself. I’m the Chief of Staff.”

As he left for a staff meeting, Mr. Emanuel concluded by saying, “These things happen. People see things they’re not supposed to see. Then they go away. As if they never existed. In fact, I have no idea what ‘cleaning woman’ you’re referring to. We’ve never had a woman like the one you describe on staff at the White House. You must be mistaken.”

The situation is all the more worrying because of the recent war of words between Ms. Pelosi and the CIA. Pelosi said last week that she was told in a CIA briefing in 2003 that the practice of waterboarding was legal, but that it was not being used on detainees in U.S. custody. The CIA has disputed that account.

Reached at his Langley office, Mr. Panetta said, “Who? Nancy Puh-who? Pelosi? No. God, no. Never heard of her. Actually, this isn’t even Leon Panetta. This is someone else. This is Dan…Notpanetta. Okay? Thanks. Gotta go.”

The senator said it’s not just members of his own family he’s concerned about. Thousands of people across the country, he says, seek to change their names each year, but many give up due to the bureaucratic obstacles they find standing in their way.

“I met a young girl recently named Amanda Uglycrotch,” Senator Shitonface said. “You can imagine, she gets it pretty bad at school, too. She came to me out of desperation, looking for help, after attempting to get her name officially changed by going through the proper channels as they currently exist. She so desperately wants this bill passed. I can honestly say, after getting to know her, I want it almost as desperately myself. This girl shouldn’t have to deal with the thought that her crotch might be ugly every time she hears her name spoken, just as my son should not have to endure the thought that there is feces on his face, when there is not.”

The senate’s vote on the bill could come as early as Friday. Senator Shitonface, who said he hopes to get at least ten Republicans to cross the aisle and vote with him on the bill, was later seen lunching with friend Glen Hugeass.

“First it was an apple, while Secretary Geithner was trying to make a point about reducing government spending,” Mr. Conrad said. “Secretary Geithner just looked up for a moment at President Obama, who looked back at him as if nothing had happened. Then the secretary started speaking again, and a moment or two later an orange came across the table, on a bit of an arc, and hit Secretary Geithner in the chin and then fell to the floor. He looked at President Obama again. No reaction. No indication anything had been done. And this went on for the entire time the secretary was trying to make his points, until the president ran out of fruit.”

Mr. Conrad was hesitant to speculate as to the reason behind the president’s actions. But he acknowledged that it is Mr. Geithner, more than any other government figure, who is most associated with what many see as an insufficient White House response to the continuing economic crisis.

“It’s possible it’s just pent-up frustration from the past few months,” Mr. Conrad said. “Maybe for a lot of the negative feedback, the criticism they’ve received regarding their response so far.”

It was Mr. Geithner who was held responsible for lack of detail in the bank rescue plan announced in February, which caused unease and a 4% drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Mr. Geithner was criticized for his handling of bonus payments to executives at AIG. And just this week, The New York Times published an expose of sorts on the close relationships Mr. Geithner shares with many Wall Street players. That article may have been something of a last straw for the president in terms of his treasury secretary, though there is no indication that he has any plans to replace him at this time.

“I don’t think he wants to necessarily make a change,” Mr. Conrad said. “But I think he wanted Secretary Geithner to know that he’s displeased with his performance thus far, and maybe in how that has reflected poorly on his administration, and on his first 100 days as president. And one way to show that to someone is to hurl fruit at them from across the table. I mean, I’ve never tried it, but from what I can tell, it works like a charm.”

House Minority Leader John Boehner appeared on The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and repeated a talking point referencing “hairless spending.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared in front of reporters at the Capitol this morning, and said, “The problem with this budget, as I see it, is that it reveals a love of spending on the part of this president. Not just a love for spending, but a love of unnecessary spending, hairless spending.” Reporters asked what Mr. McConnell meant by “hairless spending,” and he said, “I mean just what I said. This president has shown that he loves spending. He loves unnecessary spending, and he loves hairless spending. I don’t really see how I could be more clear about it.”

Several hours later, House Minority Leader John Boehner appeared on the CBS Evening News, and in an interview with host Katie Couric, repeated the phrase. “Well, Republicans, Katie, are just not big fans of this much spending,” Mr. Boehner said. “But this president seems to be in love with spending. With unnecessary spending, with hairless spending. And that’s just not what we need right now.”

Ms. Couric appeared confused, and asked if perhaps the minority leader meant “careless spending.” “No, Katie,” Mr. Boehner replied with a smile, “you’re not going to put words in my mouth. I said what I said because I meant it. This spending is hairless, Katie. Hairless and unnecessary.”

Michael Steel, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner, later acknowledged that there had, in fact, been a miscommunication, but that it was on the part of anyone who thought Mr. Boehner had said “hairless spending” when referring to Mr. Obama’s proposed budget. “Obviously Leader Boehner was not speaking about spending that has no hair on it,” Mr. Steel said. “He was misunderstood, and clearly said ‘careless spending’ when referring to the bloated budget proposed by President Obama. Perhaps people who heard ‘hairless spending’ need to get their ears cleaned. I’m sure there’s some money in the Obama budget for that.”

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