THE SAD ROMANTICAL BALLAD OF MARK SANFORD: “Of course, when you’re a middle-aged man facing the collapse of your life’s work and abandoning hope of being with the woman you call your ‘ soul mate’ rational decision making or a clearly considered plan may be too much to expect.” Illustration by our pal Lauri. [TPM]

WAR ON LIBTARDS: Good jesus, is this what goes on with the comments, on the liberal blogs? Must we TAKE BACK our 2nd Place Endorsement of Talking Points Memo? Looks like it! Okay, return to “crush them all.” [TPM Cafe]

SEND ALL YOUR ALL-CAPS RESUMES TO JOSH MARSHALL! While every single media company prepares to go bankrupt and fire our comrades — RIP Radar! — the serious journalistic Talking Points Memo websites are hiring a couple of muckrakers. [Gawker]

In the Watergate era, “Deep Throat” was supposedly a government insider who met Bob Woodward in a parking garage and moodily smoked cigarettes while wearing a trench coat. The fact that Woodward himself was a government spook recently transferred from Naval Intelligence to the Washington Post newsroom led many to assume “Deep Throat” was a group of CIA bigshots nervous about the Nixon Administration turning the nation into a dictatorship, or something. Anyway, Nixon finally gave up for the sake of the country and everybody won Academy Awards for “All the President’s Men” and Henry Kissinger is still at large. MORE »

• Ed Peck, chief of the U.S. mission to Iraq under Jimmy Carter, defends Hezbollah. [Hot Air]
• Talking Points Memo launches new sub-site called Election Central. [TPM's Election Central]
• CNN this AM: “In keeping with her mood and to reflect the world crises she tackles daily, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to play a somber piece of music to her Asian colleagues in Malaysia this week. ‘It is not a time that is frivolous. It is a serious time. I will play something that is in accordance with my serious mood,’ said Rice, who had just attended a conference in Rome aimed at helping resolve the Lebanon crisis.” [Crooks and Liars]
• “‘Malice’ has several definitions, but the legal definition that applies to homicide is ‘the intention or desire to cause harm to another through an unlawful or wrongful act without justification or excuse.’ It’s intent that’s at issue here, not evil motives. And there’s no question that doctors who perform abortions or harvest stem cells have intent aplenty.” [Political Animal]

Did you see that fascinating piece on pardoning Scooter Libby over at… uh… MORE »

• In case you missed the speech last night, here’s a partial transcript. If you look closely, you can see that Hastert and Cheney weren’t even playing their instruments. [Attytood]

• Talking Points Memo’s “Grand Ole Docket” is a handy resource, and will probably make Who’s Who in Washington redundant. [TPM]
• The Joint Chiefs of Staff write letters… [Washingtonian]
• Everyone knows the real action at the SOTU happens in the audience. That place is rowdier than the Apollo! [ThePurpleState]