Holy shit, we almost forgot: the Note was re-launched today! With a new logo, and a new author, and the same conventional wisdom!

That logo is pretty neat, don't get us wrong (we're sticking with the old one because we still find the phrase "ABC Political Unit" funny). But something's... missing. Wait, lots of things are missing. Take a look at this opening paragraph:

It took nearly four months, but the White House and congressional Democrats finally got the showdown they wanted -- and have ended up just where they started. House Democrats will try and fail to override President Bush's veto of the war funding bill this morning, and congressional leaders will meet with the president at the White House at 2:25 pm ET to discuss the next step.

Doesn't that seem suspiciously like an even-handed summary of the current political reality? Is there an obtuse in-joke anywhere? A fake leaked memo? Any hint at all of the White House communications office's talking points? Pointless namechecking of obscure press corps members? Anything, really, that separates it from Slate's Today's Papers?

Thankfully, in the third paragraph, Klein baldly asserts that the Iraq bill withdrawal/veto story will turn out, in the end, to be a net gain for Republicans. So there's hope for him yet.

The Note [ABC]