Mary Matalin and Imus Love Each Other. Deep Down.

Congratulations, Mary Matalin. You are the recipient of this morning’s Porsche Sunglasses giveaway, or as Imus likes to call them “the great, big, huge sunglasses that are for women who’ve had facelifts and stuff.”

Matalin insisted she does not fall into that category, but admitted to trying Botox one time and hating it. “Isn’t it pig urine?” asked the woefully misinformed I-Man.

Then, in an effort to be confrontational—er, conversational—Imus told Matalin he had recently run into none other than former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich at “the private jet airport” in Washington, DC.

When Matalin asked whether Gingrich’s wife Calista was present, Imus said, “Was that the one he was having the affair with when he was trying to drum poor old Bill Clinton out of office for having the situation with Monica Lewinsky?”

Pointing out that Clinton’s “issue” was lying under oath about the affair and not the affair itself, Matalin wondered what difference it made about Gingrich.

“It would speak to his morality,” said Imus. “If I told you James were having an affair during that time, would that make any difference?”

It would, she replied, but it could not possibly happen. “Out of fear for his own life,” she added. “Not that I’m so special, but out of sheer, utter fear for the consequences.”

James would be James Carville, Matalin’s husband and a former aide to President Clinton, whom he had defended during the Lewinsky incident only to later learn he was lied to. Matalin had once asked her husband how he could deal with such dishonesty.

“He said, ‘If I did something that stupid with a girl that young, I’d lie about it too,’” said Matalin, doing a spot-on imitation of her husband.

Back to Gingrich, Matalin hopes he runs for President in 2012, as many are speculating, and she believes he’ll be right up there at the top, even though Imus said icky things about him today and accused him of not paying for his own private plane. “What are we even talking about here?” Matalin asked after a few confusing minutes of dialogue.

“I’m just trying to irritate you,” Imus humbly confessed.

Since Matalin has been an advisor for most of her career, most notable to both Presidents Bush and to Vice President Cheney, Imus asked how she would advise President Obama.

“Be somebody,” she said. “Be for something, and stick with it.”

She criticized his efforts toward fixing the oil spill in the Gulf, near where she lives in New Orleans, saying that the most recent moratorium he issued on deepwater drilling “will completely wreck the economy all up and down the coast, and Louisiana in particular.”

To raise her spirits, Imus suggested Matalin read Laura Ingraham’s new book, “The Obama Diaries,” which he said is laugh-out-loud funny.

“That’s our book!” cried Matalin, the editor-in-chief of Threshold Editions. But Imus couldn’t believe it, asking her several times if she had actually published Ingraham’s book.

“Obviously, you hearing has gone away,” said Matalin. “Along with some of your other parts.”

-Julie Kanfer