A year on, we can’t really blame her — she is who she is. And left to her devices, she would have remained as obscure today as she was a year ago — Bill Kristol’s wet dream, and a long-running GILF joke at Wonkette.

No, it’s war hero turned national terrorist John McCain we blame, a man who, after selling out everything but his houses to the Bushies for two years, decided that, if he couldn’t be President, he was going to take the country down with him.

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Not since the late, great, Potter Stewart have we so enjoyed the sweet mystery of jurisprudence:

Mr Lane was alleged to have been photographed placing his genitals on an army sergeant’s forehead — a practice the court defined as “teabagging” — while the sergeant was asleep.

It’s like laundering money — now that Australia’s High Court has entered “teabagging” into the public record, we can happily use the term on their authority, requiring only the proper citation to establish its provenance.

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You might recall Glenn Beck a few weeks ago pleading with his viewers not to take him seriously. You’ll certainly recall it when Beck puts the clip on permanent loop after someone takes a shot at Obama:

“If you watch MSNBC, I contend that you will see the future. They are laying the ground for a horrible event, that will be — it’s what they’re laying the ground for, anything from the Right, some awful event, and I fear this government, this administration has so much framework already prepared, that they will seize power overnight before anybody even gives it a second thought.”

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Let us take this moment to marvel at the majesty of the English language:

“We have seen very strong pricing to date this year, and we are projecting a favorable pricing environment moving forward.”

The gentleman from whose mouth that escaped is Brad Schwartz. Mr. Schwartz is a veep at “MillerCoors, a joint venture of SABMiller PLC and Molson Coors Brewing Co.” He’s joined in his Favorable Pricing Environment by David Peacock, president of “Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, the largest U.S. beer seller by revenue.”

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Senator Edward M. Kennedy is dead [Boston Globe]

Mass. Sen. Ted Kennedy Dies at 77, After Cancer Battle [WaPo]

Edward Kennedy, Senate Stalwart, Dies [NYT]

“I share the President’s conviction that as a nation, we must, to the extent possible, look forward and not backward when it comes to issues such as these.”

Henceforth, the Department of Justice will cease the investigation and prosecution of past crimes, and focus exclusively on prosecuting crimes yet to be committed.

Holder: We’re Launching “Preliminary Review” Of Torture [TPM]

Now that everyone’s out of town, the CIA torture report has finally been released, and Eric Holder will apparently appoint John Durham, “a career Justice Department prosecutor from Connecticut” who’s also looking into the missing torture tapes, to hang the Bad Apples by their seeds:

Durham’s mandate, the sources added, will be relatively narrow: to look at whether there is enough evidence to launch a full-scale criminal investigation of current and former CIA personnel who may have broken the law in their dealings with detainees.

Remember, “I was only following orders” is no defense. Unless you were. Or unless you gave them.

Holder to Appoint Prosecutor to Investigate CIA Terror Interrogations [WaPo]

CIA Inspector General Report [WaPo, PDF]