Wonkette

* Cheney takes full responsibility for shooting accident: “The image of him falling is something I’ll never be able to get out of my mind. I fired, and there’s Harry falling. And it was, I’d have to say, one of the worst days of my life.” [WP, NYT, W$J, USAT, WT]
* Cheney, in choosing Brit Hume, avoided the “elephant-in-the-room issue” of his lack of candor with the press; Fox News is considered a “secure location.” [WP, NYT, LAT, LAT]
* Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) helped allocate $48.7m in Pentagon spending to a clients of a top aide’s husband. [USAT]
* Congressional report faults response to Katrina as partisans debate what to do. [WP]
* Rice requests $75m to advance reforms in Iran. [WP, NYT, LAT]
* Cheney, Chertoff take responsibility without specifying mistakes. [WP, NYT, USAT]

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* NSA obtained cooperation of top telecoms for warrentless eavesdropping. [USAT]
* Democrats appear “poised to gain seats” in November — the fight is over how many; new machine ballots may create havoc on election day. [WP, USAT]
* House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) opposes “far-reaching” restrictions on lobbying. Boehner: “Bringing more transparency to this relationship, I think, is the best way to control it. But taking actions to ban this and ban that, when there’s no appearance of a problem, there’s no foundation of a problem, I think, in fact, does not serve the institution well.” [WP, LAT]
* Director of the ATF blamed for spending funds on unnecessary upgrades as basic needs are unmet; $65,000 conference table raises eyebrows. [WP]
* Senior official on the inevitability of Iran’s nuclear capacities: “Sooner or later, it’s going to happen. Our job is to make sure it’s later.” [NYT]

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We’ve got our night all planned out. Once we’ve finished the candy we collected from Jesse Jackson’s decimated paper-mache torso, we’ll sit down in front of the ol’ electronic hearth, pour out a drink (Wild Turkey 101, neat), and turn on C-SPAN to figure out the State of our crazy, mixed-up Union. MORE »

• Administration to propose major shift in nuclear energy strategy; program would import spent fuel for “recycling.” [WP]
• Expansion of Health Savings Accounts will be tenet of State of the Union address, Bush says. [WSJ, NYT]
• Democrats seek even more documents related to Katrina. Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.): “What do they have to hide? Why don’t they just come forward and say, ‘This is what we knew, when we knew, and this is how we reacted?’” [NYT]
• Partisan divide over eavesdropping widens as Bush visits the NSA and Sen. Hillary Clinton calls his justification “strange” and “far-fetched.” Ken Mehlman: “Not only are the Democrats not learning from costly policy mistakes, they are not learning what happened from the political mistakes of 2002 and 2004.” [WP, NYT, WT]
• Administration rejected 2002 proposal by Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) to lower the standards for getting wiretaps of non-citizens approved. [WP]
• Bush “seems unlikely to reshape the political landscape with his speech”; no major initiatives expected. [NYT]
• Samuel Alito makes “victory lap” on Capitol Hill; Bush renominates Brett Kavanaugh to U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. [WP]

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