Apparently the Republicans are worried about losing yet another congressional seat to the Dems and are wondering what it all means:

I hope these special elections are a wake-up call," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.), the leader of the conservative Republican Study Committee.

I hope these special elections are a wake-up call too! I hope (and expect) the Republicans to conclude that they've wandered too far from their bedrock rightwing principles and that they need to get back to the party of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. [h/t BooMan]

On the bad side, the primary race continues. On the good side, it's John McCain who'll be at the other end of this no matter how long it takes.

Courtesy of MoveOn.org:

ABC let voters down with last night's abysmal debate. Bad debates aren't just painful to watch—they actually hurt the country. Tell the media "enough distractions - ask about issues that affect people's lives".

Watch the video and sign the petition...

Naturally when the Wall Street Journal calls this a 'Lost Decade', they're referring to the stock market:

Over the past 200 years, the stock market's steady upward march occasionally has been disrupted for long stretches, most recently during the Great Depression and the inflation-plagued 1970s. The current market turmoil suggests that we may be in another lost decade.

But there's no reason why we should limit ourselves to just that. A whole slew of things have either been put on hold or knocked back a few steps: global warming, peace in the Middle East, universal health care, etc.

We've lost ground in so many areas. That's the true 'Bush Legacy'. It'll take us a decade just to get back to where we were.

Yet more public bandwidth sold to the Telephone Monopoly:

All told, Verizon and AT&T amassed 84 percent of total winning bids....

"Appalling," Democrat Jonathan Adelstein called the results.

"Here we had an enormous opportunity to open the airwaves to a new generation that reflects the diversity of America, and instead we just made a bad situation worse. This gives whole new meaning to 'white spaces' in the spectrum." [Ars Technica]

George Bush declaring victory in Iraq at the National Assembly of Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville:

"I strongly believe the surge is working, and so do the Iraqis."

“And as a return on our success -- in other words, as we get more successful, troops are able to come home.... They're coming home because we're successful."

Great! So where's the timetable for withdrawal?

Grim economic picture painted by columnist Jane Bryant Quinn on Friday's edition of Newshour:

Clearly, we're in a recession. We're going to have job problems. We've got difficulties with the mortgages....

Foreclosures are at record rates. People look around and they see foreclosed homes on their blocks and they see nothing but trouble ahead.

So far, I would say it's been mostly jaw-boning to try to deal with the most significant financial crisis we've had since the 1930s....

Judging by this picture in the Chicago Sun-Times [online], you'd assume Obama figured prominently in yesterday's proceedings in the Tony Rezko Trial. I mean, it's his picture along with that of defendant Tony Rezko and "star witness" Stuart Levine.

Once you read the accompanying article however, you'll find that there's absolutely nothing about Obama except for this tidbit at the very end:

Also Monday, Sen. Barack Obama's name again surfaced in the trial as Obama was mentioned in a memo about legislation that downsized the planning board in 2003. Rezko's lawyers sought to show that others besides Rezko were recommending candidates for the planning board, but the memo's reference to Obama focused solely on Obama's role in crafting the legislation.

Rezko once was a fund-raiser for Obama, who is not implicated in any of Rezko's alleged wrongdoing.

So the mere mention of Obama in a list of names from an unrelated email that has absolutely nothing to do with any of the alleged shenanigans, nevertheless guarantees a place at the top for Obama's picture.

I dread to think if someone should suffer a fatal calamity while wearing an Obama sticker or be in a car crash where the other driver has an Obama sticker on his bumper. We all know what the lede would be -- at least in the Chicago Sun-Times.