LIGHTNING ROUND: NO NUKES EVEN BETTER THAN LOOSE NUKES.

• The most interesting angle to the news that Charlie Crist is entering the Florida Senate race is the already apparent schism it has opened between the GOP establishment and the conservative movement. NRSC Chair John Cornyn is throwing the party's weight behind the moderate Crist rather than supporting insurgent conservative Marco Rubio, who has the blessings of Erick Erickson. Perhaps it's the fact that Erickson believes a hypothetical Cheney-Limbaugh 2012 ticket would have electoral appeal beyond the fringe right that has convinced Cornyn to support less incendiary candidates for 2010.
• For whatever reason, today has witnessed several poor examples in the world of opinion journalism. Whether it's Ross Douthat's belief that winning the "culture wars" is a long-standing aspiration of the left, Richard Cohen's public struggle with amnesia, The Philadelphia Inquirer's decision to hire a war criminal for his legal insights, or Adam Nagourney's assertion that until recently the GOP has been characteristically optimistic, it's embarrassing to realize that this is what counts for elite opinion in 2009.
• Michael Crowley catches a telling sign that President Obama is serious about not just nuclear non-proliferation but putting the United States on the road towards nuclear-free armaments in the future: "Obama's new budget plan includes a little-noted sea change in U.S. nuclear policy, and a step towards his vision of a denuclearized world. It provides no funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, created to design a new generation of long-lasting nuclear weapons that don't need to be tested."
• Brian Beutler had an interesting item yesterday on the potential of the Arkansas Green Party to run a candidate that -- with union support -- might upset Blanche Lincoln's chances for re-election. Too often third-party candidates are treated as a force that threatens to change the status quo at the national level. But more often it's at the local level that independent candidates make a difference, and even win office from time to time.
• Remainders: Geithner gets some help; the GOP's bizarre campaign against empathy; and Richard Posner declares that conservative intellectuals no longer have a party.

--Mori Dinauer