Quote of the day: Can't Bushpeople keep secrets anymore? Also talking: Bush v. Gore 2006—GWB finds a special friend, and AG's OK with Florida

There is, it appears, a government designation for documents, "sensitive but unclassified," or SBU, roughly equivalent to whispering, "Shh, don't pass it on!" It has less legal force than pinky-swearing not to tell, and the State Department's Information Systems and Services (ISS) office recently reminded its people that it's a lousy way to keep secrets, especially with so many levels of classification available.

"This useful reminder was issued," Al Kamen notes in his Washington Post "In the Loop" column, "only five days after The Washington Post published a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad recounting the daily hardships and dangers confronting Iraqi embassy employees. Every paragraph of that cable was marked SBU."

The timing was purely coincidental, however. We know so because the ISS said so. Kamen says:

"We certainly believe them, though we hear no one at the State Department does."


ALSO TALKING (1)—Is it possible that our George has a crush?

Rachel Maddow, back from vacation on Air America Radio this morning (was it really only a week?), casts a wary glance at today's visit to Graceland by a giddy-sounding President Bush and his Elvis-loving special friend, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. On Koizumi's last visit, you may recall, he and Bush "played baseball" at Camp David. Says Rachel:

"It's like two 12-year-old middle-school girlfriends."

(Also, in the "Ask Dr. Maddow" segment, Rachel exploded the myth that eating raw rice—like what you throw at weddings—causes birds to explode. Uh-uh, says her ornithologist expert. However, all that rice on the sidewalk can be dangerous to people. It can make us slip and fall.)

ALSO TALKING (2)—Our Al doesn't have anything against Florida

On last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart asked guest Al Gore if he wasn't perhaps hoping to see Florida suffer the fate he warns of in An Inconvenient Truth for the world's low-lying coastal areas with the oceans rising? Said the former vice president:

"I thought I won Florida."