WSJ pointing to Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm as Secretary of Energy, former EPA chief Carol Browner as a “special energy czar,” and Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Nancy Sutley as chair of the President’s Council on Environmental Quality in the new Obama Administration.

Late Update: On the other hand, the AP reports that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu “appears to be increasingly on track to become energy secretary.”

Is New York fighting to get respect as part of the top three corrupt states. Former state Supreme Court Justice Thomas J. Spargo has just been indicted for bribery and extortion.

Late Update: I should have this more clear. In our state a Supreme Court Justice is not someone who sits on the highest court in the state. The Supreme Court has several circuits and is actually a trial court. New York will have to shoot higher to make serious gains on Alaska, Illinois and Louisiana.

TPM Reader PN reports from the ground …

Simply put, Blagojevich is that deadly combination of ignorance and arrogance. One or the other is survivable, but the two, combined, are not.

I know from speaking with many of my friends who have worked with him over the years (including on his campaigns) that he is as dumb as a box of rocks. (The campaign folks would never let him talk to the press, unscripted, ala Palin.) He also thought he was God’s gift to the planet.

In recent years, his circle of advisers has shrunk to a miniscule three or four who make Bush’s “yes men” crew look like a debate society. As a friend in state government told me recently, “Everyday Blagojevich gets up and says ‘What can we do today?'” The point being, there is (and has been) no rhyme or reason for his governance. Fundamentally, the guy is an idiot, as the taped conversations prove. He is simply a jackass.

Everything I’ve heard is completely consistent with PN’s report, though that does beg the question of how this goof got elected and reelected in the first place.

(ed.note: Please no emails telling me this is the incorrect use of the phrase ‘beg the question’, though I know you’re right. I’ve decided that this misuse is too widespread, too serviceable and too lacking in an alternative not to simply persist in using it.)

Late Update: Despite my forewarning, I’m being deluged by emails from purists telling me it would be so easy simply to use “raise” instead of “beg.” I guess I’ll have to give it more thought.

Actual Substance Update: The answer seems to be that he faced two extraordinarily weak Republican candidates — though weak for different reasons. So it was really winning the primary in 2002 and that was because of a divided field and because he was a consummate fundraiser — surprise, surprise.

Obama team rolls out new Website designed to take questions from the public. With an interesting twist.

At a panel last week on justice in the post-Bush era, Scott Horton of Harper’s explained to TPMtv why the Justice Department may not be the best venue to lead investigations of the Bush years. Also: Horton says members of the Obama transition team have asked him “penetrating questions” about his December cover story on how we should investigate — and potentially prosecute — Bush-era lawbreakers …

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

TPM Reader KP is not satisfied with Obama’s response to the Blago scandal …

Sounding like President Bush is no way to begin your administration.

Obama should canvass his entire Chicago staff, find out who talked to the governor or his assistant, take that information to Fitzgerald and ask Fitz how much of this information he can share publicly. Then, he should answer all reporters’ questions. If something is asked that Fitz doesn’t want discussed, Obama can say that.

Then turn the entire matter over to his communications team for any future questions. Then move on to the task of governing.

You’d think after all these scandals, the PR template would be clear.

I guess not.

I don’t think I’m ready to be that critical yet. I’m sure they spent a lot of time yesterday trying to make sense of what had happened. And I’m heartened by the fact that there seems to be ample evidence in the criminal complaint suggesting the hostility Blagojevich had for Obama because his people wouldn’t play ball. Indeed, the prosecutors say that it was the ethics bill Obama was instrumental in getting passed that prompted Blagojevich’s spree. Still, the response seemed a bit weak to me too.

Last night I mentioned today’s New York Times article that suggests a fairly perverse reading of Obama’s decision last year to lobby for an Illinois state law to tighten up ethics rules to crackdown on pay-for-play deals. The Times suggests this is evidence of Obama’s inability to escape the taint of Chicago politics whereas it seems more reasonably to put him more clearly on the side of reform.

That point aside though, there’s an interesting kernel contained in the Times piece that I’m curious about. The piece suggests that after Obama lobbied and the senate overrode Blagojevich’s veto, the passage of the bill spurred “the governor to press state contractors for campaign contributions before the law’s restrictions could take effect on Jan. 1, prosecutors say.”

So it was the deadline created by the state ethics bill that Obama helped push through that was the spur for the “spree” of corruption that led Fitzgerald’s prosecutors to get the wiretaps that uncovered the alleged attempted senate seat sale.

Now, a few questions. David Kurtz and I were chatting about this. And it seems at least a bit of a strain to believe that a change in ethics rules could prompt such a wholesale, hog-wild leap into criminality. On the other hand, one could speculate that he wanted to rake in as many iffy contributions as possible before the new year and just went overboard. And this is what the prosecutors’ statement claims. And, frankly, the whole story makes Blagojevich sound a bit unhinged in addition to a lot crooked. So I’m not sure rationality is the best standard through which to understand any of this.

Curious to hear people’s thoughts on this.

Obama issues statement calling on Blagojevich to resign.