Over my morning cup of Joe.

Sarah Palin: An "unholy amalgam"?
The latest issue of Vanity Fair isn't even on newsstands yet and it's already making headlines for a not-so-politely titled article, "It Came from Wasilla," about Gov. Sarah Palin.

William Kristol at the Weekly Standard is calling it a "hit piece," taking writer Todd Purdum to task for his "dubious claims." A blogger at the Atlantic writes that the article "paints a gruesome picture" of the governor. Politico's Ben Smith mulls the "political fallout from the very tough piece."

Early in the almost 10,000-word article, Purdum describes Palin's life as an "unholy amalgam of 'Desperate Housewives' and 'Northern Exposure.'" Purdum has plenty of juicy quotes, but not a single source was willing to go on record. A sampling:

— "One longtime McCain friend and frequent companion on the trail was heard to refer to Palin as 'Little Shop of Horrors.'"

— "Some top aides worried about her mental state: was it possible that she was experiencing postpartum depression?"

— "Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of 'narcissistic personality disorder' in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — 'a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy' — and thought it fit her perfectly.

Purdum also quotes unnamed McCain campaign aides who, he writes, seem to "suffer a kind of survivor's guilt":

"They can’t quite believe that for two frantic months last fall, caught in a Bermuda Triangle of a campaign, they worked their tails off to try to elect as vice president of the United States someone who, by mid-October, they believed for certain was nowhere near ready for the job, and might never be. They quietly ponder the nightmare they lived through."

House of Pain: GOP's Class of '94
The sex scandals that have tarnished Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) and Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) don’t appear to have much in common. Yet there is one thread that binds them together: Both Ensign and Sanford were members of the famed Republican House class of 1994, as well as its latest casualties.

As it turns out, the pressures and demands of political life have inflicted devastating damage not only on the Ensign and Sanford families, but on the families of many of the 71 other freshmen who formed the vanguard of the Republican Revolution.

In the 14 years since that star-crossed class arrived in Washington espousing an agenda that placed family values at its core, no less than a dozen of its members have been caught up in affairs, sex scandals or in messy separations and divorces from their spouses that, in more than a few instances, led to their political downfalls.

The problems started almost as soon as they took office, and by the end of their first year in Congress, the marriages of at least four Republican freshmen had collapsed.