The following e-mail is making the rounds to reporters around town and was sent to us by a Friend of Fishbowl (FOF). High on: dripping, seething sarcasm. Low on: Basic honesty (Really NRCC? A fake Nancy Pelosi e-mail?) // From: Nancy Pelosi [mailto:info@nrccmail.org] Sent: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:27:15 -0500 Subject: Don’t have a job? Don’t worry. // At bottom of e-mail: Paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. www.nrcc.org

Sky New [sic] presenter Kay Burley was forced to make an on-air apology after mistaking a Roman Catholic symbol on American vice president Joe Biden’s forehead for a ‘large bruise’. Miss Burley, 49, made the comments yesterday during a conversation with the news channel’s US correspondent, Greg Milam. When made aware of her ignorance during a commercial break, Miss Burley then compounded her insulting words by saying: ‘I’ve said three Hail Marys, everything is going to be fine.’

Though he has pledged to be more aggressive in arguing why terror suspects should be tried in civilian courts, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder shied away from the controversy Wednesday during a 10-minute speech at a Federal Bar Association luncheon in Detroit. Holder never mentioned terrorism during his speech, or the pending case against Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian national accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day. Instead, Holder stuck to a Black History Month theme and praised the late U.S. Solicitor General Wade McCree Jr., in whose honor the luncheon was held.

The special election to replace Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) will be May 18 — the same day as Pennsylvania’s primary election. Gov. Ed Rendell (D) announced the special election date Wednesday, saying it will save money to hold the two elections concurrently. The move could also help Rendell’s party, though, because Democrats will be holding competitive governor and Senate primaries that day, while the Republican primaries in those races are decidedly less interesting.

Lacking votes on a jobs bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is reaching out to the man who cost Democrats their 60-vote supermajority: Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown. Reid has been making calls to Republicans throughout this recess week in hopes of building bipartisan support for a seriously scaled-back jobs bill, and even though the GOP has heralded Brown as “Mr. 41” — the key to blocking the Democratic agenda — Reid clearly believes Brown is gettable on this issue.

It looked a ski race but unfolded almost like literature, with a grab-you beginning tethered to the page-turner end. There were as many twists as the “Franz’s Run” course had turns. It would be hard to imagine anything better than what actually happened Wednesday, at the Olympics, in Whistler, above white snow and below blue sky. Lindsey Vonn didn’t just become the first American woman to win the Olympic downhill, with a time of 1 minute 44.19 seconds. Vonn did it with a throbbing shin under backbreaking pressure, which is why, when she won, she cried nonstop for almost two hours.

Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim said he is 99 percent sure Israel was involved in the January killing of a Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh at a Dubai luxury hotel, according to a report published Thursday in an Emirati newspaper. “Our investigations reveal that Mossad is involved in the murder of al-Mabhouh. It is 99 percent, if not 100 percent, that Mossad is standing behind the murder,” Tamim told The National newspaper.

MARJAH, Afghanistan — The Taliban’s white flag no longer flies over villages across this militant stronghold. Afghan and NATO troops have replaced it with Afghanistan’s official green-and-red banner, which they promise heralds new schools and clinics and good governance. But residents have heard that before, and for many, Taliban rule hasn’t been all that bad. Plenty of Afghans have made a living off the opium trade, which also funds the insurgency. While some residents greet NATO forces with tea, others just want the troops to clear their streets of explosives and leave.

Cleveland leads a slew of Midwestern towns on our annual list, but thanks to high taxes New York and Chicago make it too.

PRESIDENTIAL LOGISTICS: Strict flying limits during Obama visit to cost air tour operators. . .the president’s Southern Nevada swing today and Friday will shut down Sundance for 20 hours, along with every other helicopter and small-plane tour operator that flies out of the Las Vegas region, causing direct losses of $500,000 to $750,000, tour companies estimate.

Former Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, the architect of previous Republican campaign successes, says outer-suburban voters eager to place a check on President Obama and Democrats are swinging back to the GOP and will power a Republican resurgence in New England, while aiding GOP “tsunamis” in Virginia, Colorado and Iowa.

One year ago today, President Obama signed a nearly trillion dollar stimulus package and handed our children the bill. What did we get for that massive price tag? Many promises, but the promises have proven false. On this stimulus anniversary, Washington needs to hear our message that Americans expect, and deserve, better.

. . .Biden was seated in a section reserved for dignitaries. Twelve steps away from the VP and out of view of the cameras, the man started making his way down the stairs after the national anthem ended. That’s when two female plainclothes Mounties charged with protecting Biden acted, Mercer said. “They described him to me as simply not fitting in,” he said.

Officials said Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and his unnamed comrades had disclosed information about their operations which would help unravel their organisation and lead to more arrests. Mullah Baradar, who is second only to its supreme leader Mullah Omar, was arrested along with several other militant figures ten days ago, as they were establishing a new Taliban command and training centre in Pakistan’s commercial capital.

Another leader of the Afghan Taliban has been captured by authorities in Pakistan working in partnership with U.S. intelligence officials. Taliban sources in the region and a counterterrorism officials in Washington have identified the detained insurgent leader as Mullah Abdul Salam, described as the Taliban movement’s “shadow governor” of Afghanistan’s Kunduz province.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist — who faces a bruising primary race against former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio — released a fake transcript of a speech that Rubio is set to deliver. Rubio is scheduled to give the keynote address at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday. Presented in the form that a real speech would be sent to the press, the only mention that the fake speech is satire is a note reading, “not prepared for delivery.” Normally speech text released early to the press reads, “as prepared for delivery.”

Democrats wished Republicans a “happy anniversary” of sorts with a Web video marking the stimulus act’s first year in law. In their latest salvo against Republicans who voted against the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the Democratic National Committee (DNC) called 93 Republicans “hypocrites” for having promoted benefits from the bill in their districts.

When MTV announced it was debuting a little television show called “Jersey Shore,” scores of Italian-Americans decried the program, claiming it promoted unhealthy ethnic stereotypes. But in an appearance on FoxNews.com’s hit Web show, “The Strategy Room,” Jenni “JWOWW” Farley revealed that she and some of the other cast members are not actually Italian! Farley herself is “Spanish and Irish,” while castmate Snooki is actually Chilean. We’ll give you a moment to reflect on that. The self-proclaimed “guidette princess” from Poughkeepsie is not Italian!

CHICAGO — The last decade was lousy for Illinois Republicans. They lost a Senate seat, their party’s last governor went to prison and they were shut out of every statewide office. But the recent surprise win by Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race and a string of setbacks for Illinois Democrats have Republicans giddy about their chances to claim the next big election prizes: President Barack Obama’s former Senate seat and ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s old job.

. . . On the ground, the top Afghan general in the battle on Wednesday accused the Taliban of hiding behind human shields. “They have taken people hostage. Our troops have seen them putting women and children on the roofs of houses and firing from behind them,” said General Moheedin Ghori, commander of the 4,400 Afghan troops taking part.