A while ago, not long after after Barack Obama won the Iowa caucus, NPR put forth a story asking, "Is America Post-Racial?" "Probably not," we thought to ourselves, "otherwise America's premiere sketch comedy show would actually have this famously black presidential candidate played by, y'know, a black guy and not Fred Armisen." Now, Saturday Night Live has reminded us of that musing once again, because TV Guide reports that instead of adding a black actress to its troupe to play Michelle Obama, the show would rather entice former cast member Maya Rudolph to return. An excerpt, with new details from Lorne Michaels on whether Tina Fey will play Sarah Palin, is after the jump:

By the end of September, Amazon.com will begin selling wine, the director of Napa Valley Vintners told the Wall Street Journal. Online wine stores are possible now in part because of a 2005 Supreme Court ruling that knocked down New York and Michigan laws prohibiting it. Hooray legislating from the bench!Now those of us who wear sweaters and wish we could read only by candlelight will be able to annoy our friends even more trying to pretend we know something about the red grape juice we're drinking and that's making me talk too damn much again and somebody just kicked me under the table. In related dinner party fodder news, Amazon plans to sell the biographies of first ladies-in-waiting Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama on the its e-reader the Kindle before they're sold in hard-copy anywhere else. Which makes sense, if only because there's not enough time to rush out these opportunistic political potboilers in paper form. (Photo by paul goyette)

• Lindsay Lohan is turning down a $700,000 offer to pose nude for Playboy, even though she took her top off for New York for free earlier this year. Maybe Hugh should call Dina Lohan? [P6]

Elisabeth Hasselbeck flew into Minneapolis today to host a luncheon for the terrifyingly taut-faced First Lady candidate Cindy McCain, and though The View's resident conservative has hardly hid her feelings on the presidential election, she's also remained relatively mum on the subject of Michelle Obama — until now. The two women met for the first time when Obama guest-hosted The View in June, and Hasselbeck's catty comments may ensure that the visit was Michelle's last. Says the New York Times:

• Forget about the controversy surrounding skinny models, says Simon Doonan: Much more important is why so few black girls are seen on the runway. Meanwhile designers like Tracy Reese say they've actually noticed more women of color available from the agencies. [The Cut/NYDN]

• Michelle Obama wowed fashionistas with the print Thakoon dress she wore last night. [LAT, WWD]
  

Apparently Barack Obama left Invesco Field in a Jeep, and is now just cruising the streets of downtown Denver with his new political buddies, and they're all shopping and going to Starbucks like elitist gay fashion models. It's all in the animation after the jump, which might be some kind of Republican smear on Obama being a vapid celebrity but which also is definitely mesmerizing. A tipster found it on a message board somewhere. Enjoy!

A mere days after winning, in a shocking upset, that prestigious US News award, Harvard University finds itself the center of a terrible controversy! Are the Harvard Campus Police racist? President Drew Gilpin Faust (!) sent out an email to students announcing the creation of a commission to review "complaints that officers have unfairly stopped black students, professors, and other university community members because of their race." Now, I know what you are thinking. Sure, Boston is a hugely white town in which cops are probably a little less savvy about the "racial profiling" than most, but what kind of professor gets mistaken for a sundry hoodlum?? Come on in, I will show you!

Did you skip the opening of the Democratic National Convention last night? You didn't miss that much. Sure, Michelle gave a great speech. And Ted Kennedy, who is suffering from brain cancer, generated some of the evening's most emotional moments. But the best part? When the two Obama girls, Sasha and Malia, made appearances center-stage and promptly stole the show. Clip after the jump.

There were a few points when it seemed Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention was going to come apart, its swelling high points and applause lines overwhelmed by a few too many awkward halts and reflexive uses of the term "you see." But by the time Obama wrapped up, her vulnerability and lack of polish looked like smartly-deployed correctives to the idea her husband is smooth, arrogant and lacks humanity. If you agreed with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann when he said "I'm beginning to sound borderline sycophantic on this" speech, you might have flipped over to Fox News Channel, only to listen to a choked-up Juan Williams saying similar things about how poignant the historic oratory was. Everyone seemed to be raving about Michelle, including the guy on Fox who warned, "She didn't give the Gettysburg address — let's not pretend." If Obama scored points by being a heartfelt novice, her kids closed the deal, even as they interrupted their father's prepared remarks and gently corrected him on what city he was in (Kansas City, not St. Louis). It might seem exploitive come morning, but for now enjoy the clip after the jump. UPDATE: Plus video of Michelle Obama's "I Love This Country" moment.

• New Yorker editor Sarah Morrison spills about the style issue out today, and about what makes Ariel Levy's profile of Marc Jacobs so intriguing. [The Daily]

Hey there, proud parents of exceptional teens, you can end your search for a learning experience that does justice to your child's special gifts RIGHT NOW because the new US News & World Report is up on the internet and they've found the place: Harvard University! And just how did the trusty trustees of Cambridge manage to nab the top spot away from Her RoyalHighness Academy Princeton* — on that shoestring endowment of theirs? The answer will enliven your loamy loins!By reducing average class size! Now a full 3/4 of Harvard undergraduate classes have fewer than 20 students. And you know what that means: more classes taught in intimate settings by younger instructors no doubt hungrier for brain sex. (I have anecdotal evidence of this, even. Earlier this year I met a young aspiring journalist from Harvard named Lena Chen, and she was traveling [to Julia Allison's house, in fact!] with an ex-teaching assistant in tow. I am pretty sure they were having traditional non-brain sex!) Now that you know that here is some information: it is the 25th anniversary of the journalism world's most pointlessly controversial listicle and still I am pretty sure Gawker has done the only actually funny (and crowdsourced) alternative ranking. Internet people, please put rub your A+ school for B student educated brains together and think us up a new concept. Unsafest Safety Schools? Fairly ridiculous names? *Ahem, Princeton would like you to know they still hold the top spot in several categories of the Princeton Review and also are beloved by Black Enterprise magazine despite that angry thesis penned by that alumni association Judas Michelle Obama. Vote For America's Most Annoying Liberal Arts College College & University Rankings Library Eating And Shopping In Cambridge [WWD] Campus Squirrel Listings

• Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss and Charlotte Ronson, who have been friends since their Nightingale-Bamford days, are joining forces to create a swimwear/resort line due to hit stores in February. [WWD]

Classy fashion rag Harper's Bazaar ran a photo spread of insane model and television personality Tyra Banks dressed as possible first lady Michelle Obama. Why? Because... Tyra's black... and a lady? Sure! Daily Intel suggests that maybe the real Michelle Obama turned them down, but we're willing to give Bazaar's editors the benefit of the doubt and assume that this was their stupid, stupid plan from the very beginning. They released a little video from the shoot, and Tyra says some nonsense and a Bazaar editor says some nonsense and then they all go to White Castle, because they are all higher than you've ever been in your life. Video below!

Just in case you missed it, those photos of Tyra Banks as Michelle Obama in Harper's Bazaar are now online! [Harper's Bazaar]

John McCain is going to love this: in what is apparently an inadvertent attempt to further the "Obama is a celebrity" meme, everyone's favorite slut rehabilitator Tyra Banks has turned up in the pages of next month's Harper's Bazaar, dressed as a Michelle Obama-ish First Lady (complete with a Barack-a-like and First Kid). Forget Tyra's Oprah envy — it's clear now that Ty-Ty has been taking her social-climbing tips from model-turned-First Lady Carla Bruni. Needless to say, the nation is not smiling with its eyes. Says Page Six (which calls the whole shoot "vaguely unsettling"):

• Tyra Banks is to dress as Michelle Obama for Harper's Bazaar, thus ending all rumors about the prospective first lady being kind of crazy and off the handle. [NYM, P6]

This is the New Yorker's new cover, depicting Barack Obama and his wife Michelle in the Oval Office. It accompanies a big article about how Obama maybe was not always about CHANGE but in fact may have been a skilled Chicago politician at some point. The cover promises to become an election flashpoint, and the presumptive Democratic nominee's campaign has already called it "tasteless and offensive." The caricature, according to the Huffington Post, "combines every smeary right-wing stereotype imaginable" about Obama. Ha ha, as if. Sure, the stereotypes about Obama being a flag-burning terrorist muslim and Michelle being an ashamed-of-America black power revolutionary are all there, but shouldn't Obama somehow also be an aloof Harvard elitist who hates "bitter" working-class whites? Instead, he's in rags and robes, with no jewelry or caviar or sociology texts and so forth. Anyway, the cartoonist said he's trying to mock the stereotypes, not perpetuate them:

So while we're on the subject of Radar and who owns them and what they won't cover, let's all read this fun story about the Jesse Jackson family from last February's New Republic! It's about Barack Obama the Jackson kids. First: the younger Jacksons like Barry Obama a lot more than Jesse Sr. This has been amply demonstrated recently. But the Obama family and the Jackson family are totally intertwined! Let's learn about that, shall we?