Midday open thread

• Struggling Erie, PA, gets a $100  million anonymous donation. Great story.
• WY-AL: Sigh. Ol' Barbara Cubin will be missed.
• Mr. 24% sure has his heart in a weird place.
• More trouble for Blackwater.
• Aww, how nice. David Broder won't write about Rudy's marriage. Too bad he didn't extend that courtesy to the Clintons.
• Lawrence Lessig today endorsed Obama, a coup in his efforts to woe the Silicon Valley set. But most interesting about his endorsement post was his attack on Hillary:

  But the part that gets me the most about Senator Clinton is the eager embrace of spinelessness. I don't get this in Democrats generally. I never have, but I especially don't get it after two defeats to the likes of George Bush (ok, one defeat, but let's put that aside for the moment). Our party seems constitutionally wedded to the idea that you wage a campaign with tiny speech. Say as little as possible. Be as uncontroversial as you can. Embrace the chameleon as the mascot. Fear only that someone would clearly understand what you believe. (Think of Kerry denying he supported gay marriage -- and recognize that the same sort of people who thought that would win him support are now inside the control room at ClintonHQ).

  All politicians of course do this to some degree. And about some issues, I even get it. But what put me over the line with Senator Clinton was the refusal to join the bipartisan call that presidential debates be free. Not because this is a big issue. But because even on this (relatively) small issue, she couldn't muster the strength to do the right thing.

  Her failure here was not because her campaign didn't know of the issue. I spoke directly to leading figures (or so they said) in the campaign. The issue was discussed, and a decision was made. And the decision was to say nothing about the issue. You can almost see the kind of tiny speak that was battered around inside HQ. "Calling for free debates might be seen as opposing copyright." "It might weaken our support among IP lawyers and Hollywood." "What would Disney think?" Better to say nothing about the issue. Better to let it simply go away.

  Yeah, that pretty much sums up the problem with Hillary.

• Where's Fredo? Gonzales conspicuously missing from Mukasey's swearing-in ceremony.
• If Ron Paul runs as a Libertarian in the general election, he'd pull more from Democrats than Republicans in a Clinton/Giuliani/Paul/Nader matchup. Or so thinks Rasmussen.
• Over at John Cole's place today, we find out that the wingutosphere hates historical accuracy, that the general wingnutia thinks that not voting for Bush is treason, and that the National Review wants Joe Leiberman as their veep in a Republican ticket.

  But best of all is his timeline of the Georgia rain prayer effort:

  1. Georgia is in severe drought

  2. Governor Perdue decides to pray for rain on Tuesday

  3. Forecast called for rain Tuesday

  4. Prayer service goes ahead as planned

  5. Skies completely clear up immediately following prayer service

  6. No rain