I don't know which is more distressing -- learning that Rahm Emanuel conspired with former Ilinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich to appoint a placeholder to the congressional seat he would vacate to become White House chief of staff, or learning that he didn't know that a governor has no power to fill such a vacancy.

According to this report in today's Chicago Sun-Times, computer records show that on Nov. 6, 2008 -- the day we learned that President-elect Obama had selected Emanuel for the chief of staff job -- the then-chief of staff to Blogojevich, John Harris, used his office computer to search for information on how to fill a vacancy in the House of Representatives.

The exact search term used? "Temporary appointment to fill vacancies in the house of representatives [sic]."

The inclusion of the word "temporary" is key, because what Emanuel was really after -- and what Blagojevich (who was then right smack in the middle of sucking up to Emanuel) wanted to be able to do for Emanuel -- was to find a way to keep that seat warm, so that Emanuel could, after serving a few years as Obama's chief of staff, return to Chicago, take back his former seat, and resume his planning for a bid to become the first Jewish Speaker of the House in U.S. history.

After watching coverage last night of Bill Clinton's meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, and reading more coverage this morning of his trip to recover two American journalists who had been held prisoner by the megalomaniac's regime, I'm sure I'm in good company when I say I'm concerned about the potential fallout from the whole exercise.

I am speaking, of course, about what the future holds for Jesse Jackson -- because I cannot think of anyone who is less happy with Bill Clinton today than is Jesse Jackson.

First, Clinton beat Jackson to the punch in the presidential sweepstakes, twice winning where Jackson twice had fallen short, and earning for himself the title "America's First Black President."

Is Jon Corzine about to throw the long ball?

In the Garden State, GOP gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie's lead over incumbent Democratic Gov. Corzine is large, and growing larger -- 12 points, according to the latest survey by Quinnipiac University's Polling Institute, released this morning.

And Corzine, apparently, believes he may have to throw the long ball. But will his Hail Mary work, or will it end his campaign?

This race is not over, and national GOP leaders looking to tout a New Jersey victory as a "bellwether" would be wise to stay focused on execution for the next 112 days.

Contrary to what some of the early conclusion-jumpers on the Right seem to think, yesterday's coup in the New York Senate had nothing to do with same-sex marriage, and everything to do with broken commitments and one very rich man's determination to enforce an agreement.

If you want to understand what really happened, begin by reading this piece by Steve Kornacki of PolitickerNY.com.

Then read this essay by B. Thomas Golisano, the billionaire philanthropist, three-time Independent Party nominee for governor, and recent New York tax exile.

Golisano, you see, is the man who hatched the coup.

One of the joys of politics is that it attracts some enormously talented writers -- and if you enjoy reading the written word, the subject matter offers a world of variety.

You can read high comedy (the Clinton impeachment or low (the Dole campaign of 1996, drama (Reagan's 1987 call for Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!, suspense (the 1976 GOP national convention, romance (Howard Dean's 2004 insurgent campaign or tragedy (the 1968 Democratic convention.

And for daily political journalism, Dana Milbank of The Washington Post is a brilliant sketch writer -- on the order of Sid Caesar and Carl Reiner at the dawn of the Age of Television.

Today's classic entry is his take on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's press conference yesterday, in which she tied herself into knots while charging that the CIA had lied to her, and to Congress, "all the time."

Read it, and be thankful God gave you the politics gene.

"It's not about the policies or the politics, and it's certainly not about the principles. It's about power, and it has been for a long time."

So writes Jim Geraghty in this piece for National Review Online, explaining what motivates our 44th President.

As one who will forever bear, with Steve Schmidt, the responsibility for having to run a general election campaign against Obama -- and the concomitant frustration in trying to figure him out, and the ignominy of a wipeout at the polls -- I can attest first-hand to the depth of Geraghty's perception. It's dead on.

No, not this Jack Ryan.

THIS Jack Ryan.

Even in New Jersey -- where corruption is endemic -- voters expect their politicians to mouth the standard platitudes about fighting corruption.

It's like a New Jersey take on an old Soviet-era joke: "The politicians pretend to fight corruption, and we pretend to believe them."

So when a politician breaks tradition by publicly recognizing and thanking a guy who was convicted of conspiracy in a plan to bribe local officials to rig contracts, people sit up and pay attention.

And when that politician is governor of the state, and the crook he's recognizing and thanking publicly is a major campaign donor, it makes news.

Christine Todd Whitman -- twice elected governor of New Jersey without once winning a majority of the vote -- can always be counted on to show up in The New York Times when the Gray Lady needs someone with an (R) after her name to caterwaul about how the GOP is too conservative.

Tuesday's party-switch by Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter provided a golden opportunity.

So on Thursday, her words once again graced the op-ed pages of The Newspaper of Record.

What's interesting is not that she uses the Specter defection as an excuse to sigh over her party's turn to the Dark Side. What's interesting is the political amnesia she relies on to lay out that case.

As Chairman of the Defense Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., writes the largest single spending bill the Congress handles every year — more than $500 billion for Fiscal Year 2009.

A taxpayer would be forgiven for thinking that, as chairman, Murtha understands his role as being that of a firm steward of the taxpayer’s resources — the vigilant guardian of the treasury, whose job it is to place himself between those seeking the federal Pot O’ Money and the Pot itself, and hand over funds only to those projects he and a majority of the Congress and the President deem worthy of funding, after a long and careful inspection of the pros and cons of the thousands of funding requests that hit his committee annually.

That taxpayer would be forgiven … and that taxpayer would be wrong.