Here are some of the best quotes of the day, and there were lots to choose from:

From Mark Kleiman:

Just in case you had, even for a moment, considered paying attention to Rush Limbaugh’s whining about how partisan Democratic prosecutors are mistreating him by not letting him walk on charges of illegally buying prescription drugs, here’s what happens to someone who’s (1) a genuine pain patient rather than someone feeding a habit and (2) not a politically powerful multimillionaire: a 25 year mandatory prison term.

From Harold Meyerson, Washington Post:

The only unequivocally good policy option before the American people is to dump the president who got us into this mess, who had no trouble sending our young people to Iraq but who cannot steel himself to face the Sept. 11 commission alone.

From Josh Marshall:

At the critical moment the president has the toxic mix of the bulldog will of a Winston Churchill and the strategic insights and imagination of a Neville Chamberlain.

He has no plan. And will without policy just equals death.

The gap between the reality in Iraq and the White House’s Potemkin village version of it is closing rapidly, like an upper and lower jaw about to shut tight. And the White House’s penchant for denial is being squeezed between the two.

The winner of the day is Doonesbury, however, for a cartoon that is sure to raise a firestorm. (Click to enlarge.)

Brown Sugar?? Ouch.

Update: I know I’m quoting Marshall a lot lately, but he’s the smartest blogger in the world. This just in:

Ages and ages ago we told you how Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith ran the office charged with doling out Iraqi reconstruction contracts. And we told you how Feith’s law partner, Marc Zell — amazingly contravening the law of averages — had happened to set up a special lobbying shop to lobby for companies looking for sweet Iraq contracts.

And then, because we didn’t want to leave out any details, we noted that Zell had opened that new operation with Salem Chalabi. And, yes, Salem is Ahmed’s nephew.

Now it turns out that in addition to his entrepreneurial activities, Salem is also in charge of setting up the Iraqi war crimes tribunals, which will eventually try Saddam Hussein.

All of which should reassure you that as messy as things may be at the moment, we’re at least freeing this sad land from corrupt dynasticism and clan rule.