An important event not to be forgotten: The ACLU is hosting a reading tonight of declassified documents relating to torture and enhanced interrogation, the sort of stuff that will curdle your dreams for a decade. So why come and listen? It’s the only way to make the nightmares eventually go away. Hope to see you there.

There’s an eerily familiar quality to the Challenges for Change debacle, now that the Administration’s plans have been laid on the table. Months ago, Democrats voted to authorize the use of force against the imminent threat of the budget deficit, and Jim Douglas wasted no time parlaying that authorization into a pre-emptive strike against a staggeringly broad range of protected programs and institutions. Now more than a few who voted to authorize force are claiming that what they voted for originally was only to strengthen Douglas’s hand diplomatically — not to actually wage war. They were duped, in short, by a slippery Executive. But a word of caution: Hillary Clinton found that explanation less than effective. Edwards did better with an outright apology, as we recall. For a while.

If you’re Sarah Palin, you’ve had literally years now to prepare for the inevitable question about a 2012 run. And Sean Hannity obliged the other night, asking both Palin and Bachmann to imagine themselves in the Oval Office. We remain in awe at the woman’s staunch resistance to grammar, her embrace of the infinitely open clause.

“As I have said, I’m not gonna close any doors that perhaps would be open. Michele and I both, we have strong faith that we, fighting as hard as we can for our country and supporting those who share our values, share our principles — and at the same time, putting our lives in God’s hands, and asking him for direction and wisdom.”

Breathtaking. You know, in a subject bludgeons verb with direct object sort of way.

In a few days we’ll begin running a short campaign commercial on UVMTv, the campus television network. The piece was shot and put together by a very talented Freshman filmmaker named Chase Martin, who had two distinct tasks when he set out: 1) explain that voters somehow get six choices in the Chittenden County Senate Race, and 2) avoid being boring. I’m biased, but I think he made it happen. The spot is called “Half A Dozen.” Just one potential glitch: once you click Play, you have to click the HD off, or it will probably run slowly on your PC. Watch out, Scorsese.