A SQUEAKER IN ITALY. It looks like Romani Prodi's center-left coalition will eke out a very narrow victory against hilarious crook-turned-politician Silvio Berlusconi. If so, Italian society may soon prove less divided than it seems. Even the narrowest of margins for Prodi's coalition would allow him to remedy the current situation where some television stations are owned by Berlusconi, and the other television stations are owned by Berlusconi's government. Everyone likes to complain about media bias, but the situation the Italian left's been dealing with is truly off the charts.

--Matthew Yglesias

K STREET GIVETH... Two amusing K Street-related notes regarding Tom DeLay's imminent retirement: First, see Jesse Lee for the latest on lobbyists getting a wee bit testy about DeLay converting the re-election campaign contributions they raised for him into funds for his legal expenses. �If I wanted to give to a legal fund, I would�ve done it directly,� Roll Call quotes one lobbyist; says another, "That all this money will go to the legal defense fund, it sickens me."

MEANWHILE IN CRAZY LAND. I have no idea what the provenance of the documents Bill Kristol is quoting here is exactly supposed to be, but they definitely don't show what he seems to think they show. What's going on here, plainly, is that Saddam Hussein was making plans for irregular warfare, possibly including terrorism, as contingency plans to be used in response to an American invasion, not that Saddam was plotting unprovoked terrorist attacks on the United States.

--Matthew Yglesias

SO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. There's little more annoying in modern punditry than on-the-other-handism, that irksome little quirk that causes professional pundits to sully perfectly sound columns by ending their focused critiques with indiscriminate, incoherent sprays of blame. Today's example? Sebastian Mallaby, who concisely dismantles the modern GOP's contempt for governance and then, out of nowhere, ruins it with a meaningless, inaccurate shot at the Democrats.

LIFE DECLINES TO IMITATE ART. Reading the West Wing piece Mike linked to, I stumbled across this tidbit I'd not known:

On that score, Mr. Sheen was offered an opportunity to see how his character's appeal would play in a real-life campaign. Not long ago, he said, he was approached by Democratic Party representatives from his native state, Ohio, to see if he would be interested in running for the United States Senate after he left the show. Though he would have had little trouble drafting a campaign platform � he is a fierce opponent of nuclear power and the war in Iraq, and a champion of human rights � he turned them down.

HALFWAY HOME. As I had predicted, Matt Santos won the presidency last night on The West Wing, eking out a surprise win in Nevada. Now the stage is set for the completion of my prediction, the more interesting second part: Santos, in the wake of Leo McGarry�s death, names Arnold Vinick as his national unity vice-president.