“Bros icing bros” — it’s no longer limited to the Greek Village. Why, even in S.C. politics, there have been five instances of icing within a week. It’s like the NHL out there (when they discuss how this spread through Columbia politicos, Donehue’s going to be called “patient zero”). Slate‘s “Barack Obama’s Facebook Feed” taps into pop culture as always, riffing on President Barack Obama’s canning of Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

General, you’ve been iced.

On an otherwise tame Easter morning, former Senate candidate Dee Compton pulled off a tweet with a Hitler quote, presumably a reference to President Barack Obama. Obviously, because Obama’s health care plan is right up there with totalitarian rule, instillation of marshal law and the murder of millions. But then, it’s not like Twitter can be a place for nuance.

Big ups to Macon Phillips, a gentleman from northern Alabama who is working for the Obama administration. He wrote a post on the White House blog, which included this new video of Alabama‘s trip to D.C. to celebrate the 2009 national championship.

We’ve found ourselves perplexed over the recent months regarding the interesting political flexing going on by Steve Benjamin‘s campaign for mayor of Columbia. The man ran as the Democratic nominee for attorney general in 2002, and counts among his strongest supporters top Midlands Democrats. And yet, it’s not a cut-and-dry situation.

Benjamin hired the local political consulting firm Richard Quinn and Associated to run his campaign. This is the same firm who ran Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster‘s race against Benjamin in 2002, and is running McMaster’s gubernatorial campaign. Naturally, that’s giving Benjamin a free pass on RQ&A’s in-house blog, The Palmetto Scoop. Really — Wheels McGee has been at every Benjamin event we’ve ever attended, which is a tad odd for a GOP political consultant and blogger.

In the meantime, he’s also hired several people who were a part of President Barack Obama‘s campaign during South Carolina’s Democratic presidential primary (Craig Schirmer and Laurin Manning, among others). Early Thursday morning, Benjamin’s campaign announced it would start running a radio ad playing up his Obama connections in the Democratic-leaning capital city.

COLUMBIA, SC – Steve Benjamin’s Mayoral Campaign broke onto the airwaves this week with a radio ad featuring a 2007 voicemail left by then Senator Barack Obama.

“I’ve saved this voicemail for well over two years now,” Benjamin explains. “It has been a personal inspiration for me because I still believe in what we can do when we work together. I still believe in hope.”

The radio spot, Benjamin’s first, went into rotation this week and can be heard on radio stations all across Columbia and at www.stevebenjamin.com.

This takes an extraordinary amount of hubris, considering that his consultants ran U.S. Sen. John McCain‘s Republican presidential primary campaigns in this state not once, but twice. Quinn Sr. was a close, unpaid advisor on McCain’s campaign for president in 2008. Then there’s something else.

Interestingly, the child, who seems fit to consider the majority of Republicans in the General Assembly as socialists, has been slurping Benjamin since the very outset. Baldy ran a line of smack against former Speaker of the House David Wilkins, writing, “Anyway, given how ferociously Wilkins promotes (and protects) his reputation as a “Republican,” we were a bit surprised to see him hosting a fundraiser earlier this week for uber-liberal trial lawyer Steve Morrison, who is running for mayor of Columbia, S.C. on the Leftist Lying Bastard ticket (j/k … it’s a non-partisan election).”

Mind you, he never says things like this about the Quinn firm and its relationship with Benjamin, even while assailing RQ&A when it comes to Innovista. It’s often said that a man is judged by the friends he keeps. Another old bromide is “actions speak louder than words.” Benjamin’s words try to play up his connection to Obama. But his actions in regard to people like the Quinns, Folks and Fogle say so much more.

And at this point, we’ve been totally soured on Benjamin, Morrison and City Councilman Kirkman Finlay III. Somebody put a call in to Aaron Johnson.

The Alabama football team went on the annual pilgrimage for national champions to the White House. Like the last time the Crimson Tide went to DC, the team was received by a first-term Democrat. Like we’ve said before, we blame George W. Bush for the recent travails (probation, probation again, losses to LSU and Auburn (2005), loss to Florida (2008). Is it any wonder Texas won its first national championship in years during the Bush era? (Conspiracy!)

President Barack Obama congratulated coach Nick Saban, Heisman Trophy-winning running back Mark Ingram and star linebacker Rolando McClain. The team presented him with a helmet featuring the number 13 (for the number of Bama national championships), a ceremonial football and the requisite custom jersey.

Also, Twitter.

For us, “The West Wing” was appointment viewing from the pilot, on. We remember being in Richmond, rushing into the living room to catch the opening credits. Maybe it was because we’d be going to help Bill Bradley in New Hampshire (really — Al Gore was a dick during that entire primary), maybe it’s because we hadn’t had the optimism of the transformative power of politics and government beaten out of us yet. Eight years of Bush the Lesser and going on four years of a Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid has done that, in spades. Regardless, the show looked like fun.

For year on year, we went back to the show the same way an evangelical Christian would go to revival — for hope. It helped restore our hope that if a group of people who really cared about making America better coalesced and kicked ass, we could get some progress in DC. Le sigh.

Picking a favorite character (excepting Martin Sheen as President Jed Bartlet, who was on another level) is akin to picking a favorite from the Beatles. Josh Lyman is definitely up there, though, well-played by Bradley Whitford. It’s fairly well known now that Lyman was based off the man who is now President Barack Obama‘s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. Maybe if “The West Wing” was on HBO and not NBC, Lyman might have had a significant cache of f-bombs, but this was network TV, brother.

Thanks to Phil Bailey of the S.C. Senate Democratic Caucus tweeting it, this picture is now flying around the South Carolina political class at break-neck pace.

Oh, ho. Wow. This is as close as you’ll come to political porn not involving U.S. Sen. Scott Brown.

Sometimes it’s like the General Assembly is like the minor league to Congress. You can say something stupid, deal with a mini-scandal, learn from it and move on to the big leagues. Rep. Jeff Duncan, who is trying to make the leap from the S.C. House to the U.S. House, made the mistake of putting up a picture with a bad joke on his Facebook wall photos.

It’s funny ’cause he’s Kenyan! And some of the craziest people in American politics today are the birthers. Why not throw in your lot with Orly Taitz? Great political instincts there.

We really don’t like to address blowhards from the left or the right, because dealing with that is like making a rational argument in a chat room or a sports message board. But this had to be taken to task.

Michelle Malkin, who has defended World War II detention camps for Japanese-Americans, made the thinly-veiled accusation that the four doctors who appeared with President Barack Obama for one of Obama’s more forceful health care speeches were “dubious doctors” and “dangerous poseurs.”

Really?

Well, one of those doctors was none other than Dr. Sonia Vishin, a physician at our parents’ alma mater of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. And she sure as shit isn’t dubious.

Vishin, 29, is in her second year of a three-year fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine at UAB. She is the state representative of Doctors for America, a national coalition of 15,000 doctors pushing for improved access to health care, making it more affordable, improving quality, and reducing the amount of time doctors have to spend dealing with paperwork and insurance companies.

At UAB, Vishin often sees patients without health coverage who could benefit from a reformed system that covers preventive care and lowers the cost of medicine.

“It’s people who haven’t taken their medications who should’ve come in earlier and by the time I see them they’re unable to breathe and the end up on a ventilator,” she said.

Vishin plans to return to Birmingham today to work on a grassroots campaign to promote health care reform, a topic that has brought intense debate and opposition around the country.

You can disagree with these doctors’ stances, and many people do. But to write what Malkin did is asinine.

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco is a funny guy. When you’re playing for a franchise with a history that has fail stamped all over it, it helps to have a sense of humor. Now, it looks like ol’ 85 just wants to crash with the President.

If President Barack Obama had the mind control powers of a powerful Jedi, he probably wouldn’t be having so much trouble with health care. Eg., “These aren’t the regulations you’re worried about. Move along.”

But, that hasn’t stopped him from trying. Insert your “It’s a TARP!” jokes.

No, the President isn’t joining Princess Biden in a war against Darth Aetna. Turns out he was doing a publicity photo shoot promoting Chicago for the 2016 Olympics. We’d scoff at the idea that the Windy City would get the Games, but the town gave the podium for a black man with a funny name to become the president of the United States, so we’ll see how this shakes out.

However, if Obama could outfit the U.S. fencing team with lightsabers, we could bring home the gold in that event.