Tomorrow will be a year to the day that Barack Obama was elected president of these United States.

With all that has happened since then, it's getting harder to remember the headiness of that time -- whether Democratic or Republican or Independent, you can't dispute the historic nature of the 2008 election.

HBO's "By the People: The Election of Barack Obama" (9 tonight) reminds us not just of election day, but President Obama's journey to his victory. And even if the memories and the emotions linger, you'll still learn something.

First we hear that Levi Johnston -- Sarah Palin's daughter baby daddy -- is taking it all off for Playgirl.

Now we hear the next character to go nekked will be Marge Simpson.

It seems the mother of three, who we'll admit keeps herself in pretty good shape, will be featured in a three-page pictorial, complete with an interview for the November issue. (There will still be a 3D Playmate too.)

Not sure how this will go over with feminist Lisa or what the guys at school will say to Bart, but we're pretty sure Homer will be happy.

And we're happy Homer is not going to take it off for Playgirl. Or, far worse, Mr. Burns. Ewww!

Comedian Kathy Griffin filled in for Larry King last night on CNN's "Larry King Live," and one of the people she picked to interview was Bristol Palin's ex, Levi Johnston. Johnston, coincidentally, had been Griffin's date the night before at the Teen Choice Awards.

Griffin's shtick throughout most of the interview revolved around her "serious relationship" with Johnston, who is 19 years old. When she joked about waking up in his arms and staring into his "chocolate eyes," and asked him questions about their future life together in Wasilla, Johnston gamely played along, usually with a grin and very short answers. But even in his good mood, Johnston did manage to get in a quick Palin dig later in the interview...

Here's the winning caption for the latest McClatchy caption-writing contest. To see weekly roundups of cartoons by company artists, go here.

Hmm. An interesting cartoon for this month's caption-writing contest from McClatchy. Take a look, then go here to enter. The contest ends Sunday.

Still no winner for the Joel Pett cartoon with the lemonade stand, but here's the winner from the contest before that:

Sarah Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska has given cartoonists
across the country yet another prolonged shot at her. The N&O has
run several cartoons about Palin this week. Bill O'Reilly asked one of
his guests on "The O'Reilly Factor" last night whether we've reached
the point yet where continuing to demean her goes too far. His guest (a
Rhodes scholar whose name escapes me) thought not. Here are a few more
cartoons from McClatchy artists and one from Signe Wilkinson, my
favorite of the bunch, given that it puts a few things in perspective.

A week ago, if you talked about late night talkshow host David Letterman being in the middle of a war, you'd likely have been referring to his new 11:35 opponent, Conan O'Brien.

But thanks to a few off-color jokes about the Palin family, Letterman is instead in the middle of his very own "lipstick on a pig" culture war (he currently seems to be winning his timeslot war against Conan, by the way).

In his monologue Monday night, Letterman talked about the Palin family visiting New York and made a joke about Sarah Palin's daughter getting "knocked up" by (allegedly) philandering Yankee second baseman,
Alex Rodriguez.

The Palin camp reacted strongly, accusing Letterman of advocating the raping of children and even hinted that . . .

Even the notoriously smarty pants "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" (and I say that with affection and admiration) makes a mistake that bedevils many of us. In a caption promoting Friday night's story about Sarah Palin's interview, the "Countdown" crew on MSNBC mixed up whose (possessive) and who's (contraction for "who is").

We have only one rule to remember: Possessive pronouns never use an apostrophe.

This has been around a while, but I just came across it -- proof that Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin might have a future beyond politics, as a scat-jazz vocalist. Genius!

(Found via Idolator.)

Some communications professors from universities across the nation are taking issue with the way the McCain/Palin camp is putting out information.

As I write this, 138 professors, including a handful from the communications departments at N.C. State and UNC Chapel Hill, have signed an online statement criticizing the Republican presidential candidate's campaign for what it claims are distortions. Among other issues, the statement criticizes McCain's linking Democratic nominee Barack Obama to Bill Ayers, a 1960s domestic terrorist-turned-university professor. You may recall that Ayers is himself the subject of an online petition this campaign season and is enjoying the support of many of his academic colleagues.

The communications statement also charges the McCain camp with stoking "the fires of racism" for some controversial comments made by local Republican groups.

The statement does include a vague admonition to Obama's camp but does not mention specifics. It says in part:

"Both major campaigns have been criticized by fact-checking organizations for prevarications. We call on both campaigns to halt blatant misrepresentations of their opponent's positions.

It would be misleading, however, to imply that since "both sides do it," there is no qualitative difference worth noting. In recent weeks, the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin has engaged in such incendiary mendacity that we must speak out. The purposeful dissemination of messages that a communicator knows to be false and inflammatory is unethical. It is that simple."