• Katherine Harris pulls the crazy train into the station for maintenance. Get well soon Katy!
• Stop Tim Russert whilst he’s walking and he will cut your effin jacobs off!
• God pardons Ken Lay.
• Joe Lieberman’s not sure who he is anymore, but he’s running for something
• American competitiveness slips again. We’re losing ground to the Koreans in nattiness of street mobs. ‘Tis of thee.
• The president can’t get his mind off his trip to Graceland, Larry King can’t get his off marginally relevant World War II era anecdotes.
• Apparently, the sodomy squadron has been napping on the job, because they needed Vanity Fair to tell them the Watergategate parties were all about the ass- **** ing.

• Ken Lay predicted his own death! Just like Biggie Smalls and Martin Luther King! [Consumerist]
• Unless he didn’t, and is in Fiji right now. One of the two. [Dealing In Subterfuges]
• The name of the Dong. [Andrew Sullivan]
• We must reduce our dependence on foreign sources of kimchi! [Rude Cactus]
• Harold Ford of Tennessee - corruption so deep even Reuters can’t find it. [Sweetness & Light]
• James Wolcott is all about red meat and illegal fur - but draws the line at Honduran hookers. [James Wolcott]
• The lower you go in the Hookergate investigation the shadier the characters get. [TPM Muckraker]

Henry Allen, we know you’re a Pulitzer-winning critic, a respected old newspaper veteran, all that jazz. But please — the death of Ken Lay does not call for a rewrite of Hunter S. Thompson’s Nixon obit. Ken Lay was a garden-variety crook, not the near-mythic villain of a generation. You are a Washington Post staff writer, not an iconoclastic, self-destructive legend. Here are some phrases that should not appear in the Washington Post:

• “man of strange and constant demands”
• “gibbering with anguish as fire-eyed psychopaths stare at him for unblinking hours”
• “the cruel grenades of memories”
• “strange and vicious outrage”

Hank (may we call you Hank?), you’re supposed to get this stuff out of your system while you’re writing for your college paper. Unless you’re Matt Taibbi.

Ken Lay’s Last Evasion [WP]

• Kenneth Lay’s death “effectively voids the guilty verdict against him,” though his assets will be fought over in court by the various people suing him. [NYT]
• An FBI consultant hacked FBI computers, just for a laugh. He learned the passwords of 38,000 employees and gained access to Witness Protection Program records. [WP]
• North Korea says they’ll continue launching missiles. President Bush faces an increasingly “bleak foreign policy landscape.” [WP, WP]
• President George W. Bush is 60 years old today. [NYT]
• The House Government Reform Committee subpoenaed the Pentagon seeking information on a soldier who claimed he suffered “reataliation” for reporting on abuses at Abu Ghraib. [AP]
• The Navy is reintroducing Vietnam-style swift boats in Iraq. [LAT]
• Hillary Clinton faced a difficult decision on the Joe Lieberman campaign, and despite her equivocal support, there’s no bad blood between them. Unless there is. [NYT]

“Ken Lay was too weird to live, too rare to die…” (AP)

Tony Snow on the passing of “Kenny Boy” Lay:

Q: What has been the President’s reaction to the death of Ken Lay?

SNOW: I really have not talked to him about it. I will give you my own personal reaction, which is that when somebody dies, you leave behind those that grieve, and I think that they deserve our compassion. But — I don’t know, what do you think would be the appropriate thing to say?

Q: I do not know. I don’t know him. The President was his friend, not me.

SNOW: No, the President has described Ken Lay as an acquaintance, and many of the President’s acquaintances have passed on during his time in office. Again, I think that it is sort of an interesting question but not answerable by me.

Thinkprogress has the video.

Yes, an acquaintance.

Bush, clearly shaken by his non-friend’s passing, cheerfully and goofily bought a reporter a cup of coffee at a Dunkin Donuts today. With his very own money! Your surreal press op theater transcript, after the jump.

Q Mr. President, North Korea — do you believe there should be —

THE PRESIDENT: April, would you like me to buy you a cup of coffee?

MS. RYAN: I would love you to.

THE PRESIDENT: What would you want in it?

MS. RYAN: Anything you want to give me.

THE PRESIDENT: What would you like in it, cream and sugar?

MS. RYAN: Sure, sir. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: It’s coming your way. It’s in the spirit of —

MS. RYAN: Spirit of what?

THE PRESIDENT: Spirit of reaching out.

MS. RYAN: All right. And you got money in your pocket. Do you typically keep money in your pocket?

THE PRESIDENT: No, this is — Jared let me have this. (Laughter.) I’ll repay him. The man offered to give me the coffee for free. You can’t run a business if you give your coffee away. I understand how commerce works. He offers a product I want, I then pay for that product — I’ll handle that, sir, thank you — (laughter.)

MS. RYAN: Mr. President, thank you so much.

THE PRESIDENT: Anything for you.

MS. RYAN: Thank you. Presidential coffee, mmm.

END 11:08 A.M. EDT

Video: Bush buys reporter coffee at Dunkin Donuts [Hot Air]
President Discusses Immigration in Alexandria, Virginia [White House]
Snow On Lay’s Death: ‘I Don’t Know, What Do You Think Would Be The Appropriate Thing To Say?’ [Think Progress]

Jeez, we know the guy wasn’t well-liked, but even for us this is pretty intense schadenfreude.

NYTimes.com

Before the body is even cold, the internet will feast on the corpse for life-giving lol’s.

Ken Lay Lives!!

Enron founder Kenneth Lay died this morning in Aspen, Colorado, awaiting sentencing for fraud and conspiracy. Lay, 64, was admitted to the hospital last night after suffering a massive coronary.

Federal prosecutors immediately found a large portrait of Mr. Lay and placed it in an imitation gold frame with tasteful gray matte.

Update: In retrospect, headline should’ve been God Pardons Ken Lay.

Enron founder Ken Lay dies [CNN]

The jury in the Enron criminal case has returned with a verdict, and the news is not good for the defendants.

Enron founder Ken Lay has been convicted on all six counts of fraud and conspiracy (as well as additional bank fraud charges that were tried before the judge rather than the jury).

Former CEO Jeff Skilling has been convicted on 19 of the 28 counts he faced. He has been convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges, but acquitted on all the insider trading charges except one.

Lay and Skilling: Now it’s their turn to get **** ed in the ass.

Jury Convicts Enron’s Skilling and Lay [WP]
Enron Chiefs Guilty of Fraud and Conspiracy [NYT]