Just after President Bush appeared last night on "Deal or No Deal," and just before Sen. Barack Obama did a guest spot on "The Daily Show," all three presidential candidates took to the mats of the WWE.

On the World Wrestling Entertainment show, candidate impersonators faced off in a fictitious match that included body slams and something called the "Samoan Spike."

The segment opened with the real Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton calling herself "Hil-Rod," and then Obama made an inside joke, saying, "Do you smell what I'm cooking." Both appeared via taped message.

Onto the screen popped Sen. John McCain. "Looks like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want to settle their differences in the ring," he said with mock fierceness (although he looked more like Popeye the Sailorman). "Well, that's fine with me, but lemme tell ya', if you wanna' be the man, you gotta' beat the man. Come November, it'll be game over. Whucha' gonna' do when John McCain and all his McCainiacs run wild on ya'?"

The show then cut to a mock wrestling match featuring the impostors. Hillary, in a gray pantsuit, and husband Bill entered to fanfare, then the fake Hillary took the mic and said: "Whether you're a mover or a shaker, Amish or Quaker, when it comes to change, whutcha' gonna' do? Whutcha' gonna' do when Hillary Clinton and her superdelegates run wild on you?"

More fanfare and out came a fake Obama -- with huge fake ears.

They squared off in the ring. Hillary started with a kick to the crotch, then hoisted Barack up and body slammed him to the mat (she followed with, of course, a leg drop). She went for the pin but he kicked out just at the count of three (who woulda' guessed that?) Meanwhile, Bill complained to the ref from outside the ring.

Barack came back with a knee to the gut, then he grasped Hillary around the neck ("Don't let him do that to you baby!" yelled Bill) and used a new move -- the "BarackBottom" -- to slam her down onto her ample rear end. As Barack bounced off the ropes for momementum, Bill appeared to punch him in, yes, again, the crotch. But he defended himself: "I did not have illegal contact with that candidate," he said.

The ref started counting BOTH of them out. "Three, four, five," then ... "Wait a minute," the announcer said as music started to blare.

Then an enormous wrestler with a huge face tattoo emerged (sorry, we don't know ALL their names, but we think it's Umaga aka Eddie Fatu) and grabbed Barack by the scruff of the neck. He poked one thumb out and jammed it into Barack's throat with what an announcer called "The Samoan Spike." Just when Bill thought the angry Samoan was a Hillary fan, the wrestler grabbed her (Bill fled up the ramp and out of the stadium), threw her onto his shoulders and pile-drived her into the ground (it actually looked really painful). They both laid there, motionless.

"Hopefully that won't happen in Pennsylvania tomorrow," the announcer said.

You'll find it all at wwe.com.

— Joseph Curl, senior White House correspondent, The Washington Times

Team McCain has a whole bunch of new gear available at its official store here. An e-mail just now from the campaign says breathlessly that there are new "hats, buttons, bumper stickers, yard signs, t-shirts and special state and coalition-specific gear. Please visit our store today!"

We checked it out — some cool stuff (although some of it's a bit pricey, like the $200 fleece jacket). A new item: state-shaped McCain lapel pins.

Of course, we fixated on the pink embroidered polo shirt, especially because it comes in 3XL. It takes a lot of man to wear that shirt.

— Joseph Curl, senior White House correspondent, The Washington Times

Mark Salter, a top aide for Sen. John McCain, was not too happy with Michael Leahy's story Sunday in The Wasington Post. Or maybe Salter just wants the two hours he spent talking to Leahy back. Either way, Salter wrote in to National Review to vent:

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The Corner/National Review Online

McCain aide Mark Salter wrote in, and I thought his account provided ample reasons for doubting the Washington Post's story. Salter allowed me to post his email. (I've made minor edits for typos.)

Saw your post about the WP story on the McCain temper. If one half of it were true, it would give me pause. As it happens, the piece is 99% fiction. [Reporter Michael] Leahy is a nice guy, but the story was one of the more dishonest I've read in a while. I talked to him for over two hours.

Some of the instances, like the Bob Smith one, he never even raised with me so I could respond. For others, he declined to print my rebuttal. He used my quotes in ways that made them seem as if I were confirming his thesis when I insisted that McCain's temper is no greater than the average person's, and that I personally know 20 or 25 Senators with much worse tempers. He argues, sometimes heatedly, with his peers, but he doesn't hold grudges or pick on people subordinate to him. If you want to tell what members of Congress have ungovernable tempers, you need only look at how rapidly their staffs turnover. As a twenty-year veteran Hill staffer, I can assure you that is the best indicator of which members have bad tempers. McCain's staff serve tenures well beyond the norm, because they are treated exceedingly well by him.

The story about the Young Republican in 1982 is entirely fictional. The Bob Smith incident is entirely fictional. The Karen Johnson story is entirely fictional. Most of the others are exaggerated beyond recognition. Let me give you two examples of Leahy's reporting practices that serve to underscore that he had a thesis he wanted to prove and forced facts to make them fit it.

I am quoted regarding the Renzi incident saying something like "no punches were thrown," making it seem as if i was excusing any incident as evidence of bad temper unless McCain drew blood. In fact, Leahy suggested to me that McCain had thrown a punch (I believe he got this from a defamatory book published recently by a Democratic activist). I responded directly to an accusation. More, I told him that McCain hadn't lost his temper at all. McCain routinely refers to people and colleagues as "boy." He does to me, to Lindsey Graham, Joe Lieberman, and almost everybody. It's like saying hey, buddy. He means nothing by it. Renzi was relatively new to Congress, and got upset when McCain refered to him in this completely innocuous way. All McCain told Renzi was that he meant nothing by it, and Renzi should calm down or words to that effect. That was it. And I explained all that to Leahy. None of it made it into the story. That wasn't only place in the story he declined to quote me fairly or to quote my explanation at all.

When he asked me about Karen Johnson, who says McCain tried to block her from getting a job, I asked for details: what job; who did he call, when did it happen, etc. He said he couldn't give them to me because he had promised his source he wouldn't share those kind of details with McCain in advance of publication. Source didn't ask for her identity to be protected and didn't put the details off the record. They all appeared in the story. I explained to Leahy that this was a very unusual form of confidentiality, that an incident that was given to him on the record could not be shared with the subject of the story so that we could provide an informed response. There is only one reason that a source would act for that kind of selectively targeted and temporary confidentiality, to deny us the ability to disprove the story, which we could have done in ten minutes. It's like telling someone he's been accused of pedophilia, asking for a response, but declining to identify the incident in question. Mr. Leahy was unpersuaded.

In sum, this is one of the more shoddy examples of journalism I've ever encountered. But for the infamous NYT story, I'd say it was the worst smear job on McCain I'd ever seen.

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— Joseph Curl, senior White House correspondent, The Washington Times

After Pope Benedict XVI finished his speech on the White House South
Lawn, President Bush praised him by saying: "Thank you Your Holiness.
Awesome speech."

Check it out here:

— Joseph Curl, senior White House correspondent, The Washington Times

Bill Sammon and Patrick Gavin get stoked for the pope's arrival.

Right this way Your Holiness.

Awesome speech, Your Holiness!

Sen. Joe Lieberman waves a Vatican flag.

The Big Picture: Waving from the South Portico.

Hottie blogger Julie Mason of the Houston Chronicle,
who has way better pictures at her site:
blogs.chron.com/beltwayconfidential

Off goes Pope Benedict XVI in his patented popemobile.

Update: Yes, the press corps DID mill about smartly for more than three hours on the Andrews Air Force Base tarmac awaiting the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI.
But that just made the anticipation delicious. Reporters arrived to empty bleachers and watched them fill with excited (and invited) guests -- including a hundred or more from local Catholic schools. The children cheered whenever TV crews turned their cameras toward the stands, and were by far the loudest when the pontiff emerged from his plane, dubbed "Shepherd One."
So, without further froth, the pictures:

Yes, there was much yawning waiting for the Pope to arrive.

The Honor Guard stood at attention for nearly an hour.

CBS Radio's Mark Knoller and Reuters Tabassum "The Tobe-ster" Zakaria arrive with POTUS' pool.

Uh oh! Chief of Staff Josh Bolton spots The Blogster!

The plane! The plane!

Cardinals and bishops head out for the greeting.

The president gives a wave to the press.

The leader of the free world meets the leader of 1 billion Catholics.

Check out the papal footwear!

The Blogster (snapped by the multi-talented Gabriela).

This is the line to go through the mags to get on the bus to go to
Andrews AFB to see the Pope land — five hours from now.

— Joseph Curl, senior White House correspondent, The Washington Times

Your loyal and humble blogster awoke at 5 a.m., waaaay before dawn, to prepare for the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI. But wait, you say, isn't the leader of the world's 1 billion Catholics landing at Andrews Air Force Base at 4 p.m.? Right you are, but the security for the pope's events in Washington is absurd. TV crews going to AAFB to feed the landing of the pope's jet to their networks need to pre-set between 7:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.

Everyone else — reporters and photographers — have gathered at the Westin Hotel at 14th and M streets Northwest and need to queue up at 10:30 a.m. There will be security sweeps here at the hotel, then again at AAFB from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m.

As a veteran of presidential trips, your blogster has no idea where at Andrews they are going to put several hundred reporters, but just a guess — we'll all be standing on the tarmac for at least three hours.

More TK.

— Joseph Curl, senior White House correspondent, The Washington Times

Sen. John McCain is famously superstitious — he won't take a salt shaker from a passer's hand: bad luck — and now those black rituals are permeating his campaign and the people who work for him.

"That's an ugly habit I've picked up myself," said Brooke Buchanan, the senator's national press secretary. "We were in Kansas City last Sunday and someone mentioned winning in November and three of us knocked on wood. We don't want to jinx anything. We're all very superstitious people."

Top adviser Mark Salter (left) has also been infected. "I grew a beard in 2000 and didn't shave until the campaign was over and I did it this time, too. That's my little superstition. I probably won't shave it until November," he said, adding that he's not sure if McCain "considers it lucky or if he considers it an eyesore.

McCain has a whole slew of superstitions and rituals, many stemming from his days as a Navy fighter pilot, a notoriously superstitious bunch. He won't throw a hat on a bed (bad luck), and he carries a lucky feather, a lucky compass, and a lucky penny — and nickel, and quarter.

"He had so many of them that we had to cut down — it was like a change purse in his pocket," Buchanan said with a laugh. He carries a lucky penny given to him by New Hampshire Union Leader Publisher Joseph W. McQuaid just before McCain pulled off the win there Jan. 8 (the penny was found heads up, of course).

McCain also carries a nickel he found outside his Columbia, S.C., hotel just before the primary there (and his second primary win gave him momentum into Florida, ending the race). He's also got a quarter in there, "but I think he just found that on the ground," Buchanan said. "It's always what he finds heads up." Still, it's what she called a "a lucky drummer boy quarter" — a 1976 commemorative quarter for the bicentennial.

He doesn't have a dime, but almost picked one up in January. When he went to the GOP debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, the Arizona senator noticed a shiny dime on the floor of the stage. He stooped for a closer look, but it was tails up — rejected. (Question: What if you drop a quarter on the floor in your bathroom and it ends up heads down? You could never pick it up, right?)

He's got more stuff on him, too. On St. Patrick's Day in Chicago, "this guy had a lucky four-leaf clover that was laminated," Buchanan said. "He pulled it out of his pocket and told the senator it had brought him good luck and now the senator carries it around in his wallet."

"Am I superstitious? I'm that,'' McCain said. "But I don't think I'm alone there.''

Certainly not among his staff.

"I've always been superstitous as well, like I hate the number 13," Buchanan said. Good thing she doesn't spend much time at the Crystal City headquarters of the campaign. While the elevator button for the campaign floor says "M," it actually is the 13th floor.

"Why did you have to bring that up? It is the M floor — the M floor, for McCain!" she said laughing.

Other presidents have been superstitious: FDR also suffered from triskaidekaphobia, inviting his secretary along if a dinner was to have 13 people and never traveling on the 13th day of a month (he'd depart at 11:55 p.m. on the 12th if necessary).

Reagan always had a lucky coin and gold charm in his pocket, knocked on wood often, never walked under ladders and tossed salt over his left shoulder when he spilled some (McCain does that, too). He and wife Nancy admitted reading syndicated horoscopes.

Seeking to cash in on superstitions, Zodiac vodka has looked to the stars to find the next president. "Based on non-partisan research of the fifty-five United States presidential elections to date and the astrological signs of each winning candidate through the years, ZODIAC Vodka, a luxury potato vodka handcrafted and distilled in Idaho, USA, has concluded that the Leo, Barack Obama, will defeat the Scorpio, Hillary Clinton for the democratic nomination, as well as, the Virgo, John McCain in the general election. …

"ZODIAC researched every major presidential contestant since Washington and Adams in 1789. Statistics were compiled for each of the twelve zodiac signs. The Leo/Scorpio match up in the Democratic Party heavily favors Obama. Leos have a 12 point advantage in the win percentage category, with Scorpio at 24 percent and Leo at 36 percent. Leo has never lost to a Scorpio. Scorpio, however, has lost to 11 of the 12 signs and has the greatest number of election losses, 16."

Your blogster is going to base all further reporting on whatever the luxury potato drink says (speak to me luxury potato drink). And next up: If it's McCain vs. Obama, that's two left-handers. What do the stars say about that?

— Joseph Curl, senior White House correspondent, The Washington Times

April 9
8 a.m.

OK, we're back from a secret weeklong trip to a secret location armed with quite a few secrets (more on that soon on this very blog).

The Newseum opens Friday and we forgot that we had pictures of the place snapped before yesterday's pre-media sneak peak (friends and donors — of which we are not really either — were invited to the Newseum on March 30 for a tour; we somehow snagged tickets).

The verdict: A bit underwhelming. The building is long on open space and short on moving exhibits (although in one area, where major front-pages are displayed, there is far too little room). The chunk of the Berlin Wall is awesome, as is a huge map showing the world's free press (the Western Hemisphere is doing pretty well, but there's an awful lot of red — restrained press — east of Europe). Yet many of the exhibits are more flash than substance, a sort of MSG-filled meal that leaves you hungry 30 minutes later (proving what tennis great Andre Agassi said: "Image is everything.").

The museum strives too hard to be hip and cool (although the interactive exhibits will be favorites for children). One particularly hot spot: Visitors can stand before a green screen (with images behind of the White House or Capitol) and do a short live newscast, reading from a prompter attached to a TV camera on a tripod. For $8, a museum-goer or small group gets a picture on the spot of their little broadcast, and then can log onto the Newseum site (www.newseum.org) and download their clip. Definitely worth the eight bucks.

Still, at $20 a head, the museum is not nearly spectacular enough to compete with the free museums along the Mall (and lunch was no picnic — dining for a family of four cost more than $60 in the chi-chi cafeteria). Try the National Gallery of Art right across the street — it's free! — or the Archives right up the block.

Sorry to deflate the grand opening. For what it's worth, we think it might be a bit like a sprinkler salesman going to a sprinkler museum ("The Langstrom seven-inch wrench can be used with the Findlay sprocket."). Um, already knew that.

So, anyway, here are a few snaps.

— Joseph Curl, senior White House correspondent, The Washington Times