Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who has spent the past several days working to clean up his Hurricane Sandy-damaged city, continues to be the coolest politician around. A lot of people think Barack Obama is cool because he exchanges Christmas cards with Beyoncé and plays basketball. And, relative to the staid, ancient, racist, sexist country club members who tend to populate U.S. politics, that is pretty cool! But as an individual case, President Obama is not cool-he is just not the kind of dusty old asshole we've come to expect from politics. (My colleagues Max Read and Mobutu Sese Seko have done a nice job of explaining this further here.)

No dis-R-E-S-P-E-C-T intended, but Aretha Franklin needs to learn how to be cool at a party. TMZ is reporting that she was both the first guest to arrive at and the first to leave Sarah Jessica Parker's $40,000-a-head Barack Obama fundraising dinner Thursday night.