The revelation that Catholic Church sex scandal cables were sent to Wikileaks sort of makes you wonder why the State Department is discussing what the Vatican thinks about its pedophile priests, doesn’t it? Unless of course our government is tapping the Pope to keep tracks on the Church’s pedophiles…

Earlier today I tried to get a handle on BP’s total liability for the Gulf oil disaster, given the new estimates of the spill rate. Street Insider actually came up with a higher figure than I expected, using a thumbnail metric from a Goldman Sachs per-barrel estimate

Arkansas was a loss, but the effort was worth it for the ripples it created and its potential as a model for the future. [I can talk about a lot of these issues in my 5:00 PM EST Sunday FDL book salon conversation on my Soul of a Citizen book]

Daniel Ellsberg, the former US military analyst who released the pentagon papers in 1971, appeared on MSNBC today with Dylan Ratigan. He said he fears for the safety of Julian Assange, founder of Wikileak, who is reportedly on the verge of leaking secret State Department cables. The Daily Beast reports that Assange is currently being sought by the pentagon, and Ellsberg advises him not to reveal his whereabouts.

Rand Paul got in a lot of trouble with the national media for accurately stating his beliefs. Sarah Palin before him ran aground for accurately stating her level of knowledge during the 2008 general election. So the GOP has settled on a new strategy – don’t let the candidates talk to anyone.

Read Michael Cohen’s piece on this. You can see its antecedents in an exchange we had a couple weeks ago. So not to belabor the point, but if Michael wants to know why there isn’t more liberal outrage over Afghanistan — and by which he means more liberal institutional outrage, I gather — here are some suggestions that he doesn’t really get into.

A new Fox News poll finds that support for offshore drilling continues to drop dramatically. While the percentage of Americans in favor of increased drilling has dropped from 70% to 46% in just two months, the percentage opposed has more than doubled, from 22% to 48%.

This is in line with the findings of dozens of other polls in recent weeks.

You can call this craven or disgusting if you want, but I’ll go with stupid: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) would rather look tough than smart when it comes to Gaza.

Ryan Grim and Sam Stein have an excellent piece on the coordinated efforts of various groups to support Bill Halter’s challenge to Blanche Lincoln. It represents the evolution of the efforts behind the Ned Lamont and Donna Edwards races, and now that the election is over, deserves some discussion.

A new Iowa poll shows Willard leading the pack for 2012, with the Quitter close behind.