I WAS WAITING FOR THEM TO TAKE OFFICE. You must remember this.

Emil Jones, Mike Madigan, Rod Blagojevich :: Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama.

But before Mr Obama affirms that he will preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, he is in the odd position of urging that the Senate not seat Governor Blagojevich's pick, Roland Burris, contributor to Mr Blagojevich's campaigns. The Senate Democrats appear to be concurring with Mr Obama's request.

The pick is a shrewd one by the governor, who has denied any wrongdoing and intends to go about business as usual until he's tried. He enlisted Representative Bobby Rush to make the identity politics case.

I WARNED YOU. Me, late last year.

Emil Jones, Mike Madigan, Rod Blagojevich :: Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama.

Newsweek, today.

Some White House aides have begun to grumble privately that the president has a Pelosi problem. In some ways, says a senior Obama official, "dealing with Democrats has been tougher than dealing with Republicans." (The official, like other White House and congressional sources quoted in this article, asked not to be named so he could speak candidly.)

All this, against a background of 3,000 points of dashed hopes and lost change. We have much to look forward to.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS? Newmark's Door has a thesis nailed to it.

Guess the state, and guess which political party is currently running it.

Hint. Emil Jones, Mike Madigan, Rod Blagojevich :: Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama.

State legislatures have treated the required contributions to state pension funds as emergency money to be deferred to later.

Dating to the 1970s, state lawmakers pushed off the yearly payments they were supposed to make to cover the “normal costs” of pensions, or how much employees earned that year in benefits. These so-called holidays added up, and the debt multiplies over time.

The generalization to the Social "Security" Trust Fund is left to the reader as an exercise.

Headquarters has circulated a memorandum from the State University Retirement System.

Members of the Illinois state retirement systems can rest assured that their retirement benefits remain secure despite the current volatility in the global financial markets. The benefits delivered by the state pension systems are constitutionally protected and cannot be reduced due to investment losses or for any reason. Those protections also exist under the contracts clause of the U.S. Constitution.

What the letter does not tell readers is of the referendum, on the general election ballot, to call a constitutional convention for Illinois.

Developing.