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The Rundown

3:45 p.m. ET: Rod Blagojevich may be a lot of things, many of them bad, but at least he's not a pushover. That's the most obvious conclusion from his vow moments ago -- complete with a quote from a poem -- to stand and fight, just hours after the Illinois state House voted 114-1 to impeach him. (That lone "no" voter is getting a little burst of attention now. Nice hat.)

It is possible that we're paying too much attention to the Blagojevich scandal at the expense of, say, the mechanics of the bailout. Probably because the latter topic is just depressing whereas the former, while also depressing, is full of juicy political maneuvering and wiretap recordings of an elected official talking like Andrew "Dice" Clay.

So Blagojevich now awaits trial in the state Senate, a process that could take at least a few weeks. And his appointee to succeed Barack Obama, Roland Burris, remains in limbo after the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that -- according to state law, at least -- Burris does not need the signature of secretary of state Jesse White in order for his appointment to be valid. White seems to be going out of his way now to make clear that he's not the obstacle to Burris getting seated. But if that's the case, why doesn't he just sign the stupid piece of paper and get this over with?

8 a.m. ET: Is the dream dead? Just as many Washingtonians' hopes to clear a quick profit renting out their houses for Inauguration appear to be disintegrating, so too do the prospects for fast and painless passage of an economic stimulus bill. As HuffPo's banner headline subtly puts it, "THE HONEYMOON'S OVER."

Now, it is true that Obama officials got an earful yesterday from some Senate Democrats, who want fewer tax cuts and more traditional infrastructure spending. But don't mistake the natural friction of the legislative process for some sort of calamitous intraparty break. There is not and never was any realistic way that a package this big and complicated was going to make everyone happy, just as it was never realistic to expect that the BCS system would really crown an undisputed national champion.

Obama has made clear that he wants to attract at least some Republican votes, and that means Democrats are going to have to swallow some elements they'd rather not. (And if Democrats are already thinking about 2010, they should want at least some Republicans to back the bill to give the majority some political cover in case it doesn't quite work out as planned.) After all, just look at the financial bailout -- if Republicans hadn't voted for that bill too, Election Day could have gone differently.

So the stimulus bill may just take longer than some (overly optimistic?) Democrats had initially hoped, with Nancy Pelosi now threatening to cancel next month's President's Day Recess if the measure isn't done by then. And Harry Reid is already pushing to schedule votes in the Senate this Sunday to break a logjam there. This has to be the earliest in any new Congress that both chambers' leaders have pulled the old, "We're not going home until you kids agree," trick. Maybe the dream really is dead.

And how about Roland Burris' dream of becoming a senator? The Magic Man endured a brief stumble Thursday, as he revealed that he had spoken to a possibly shady ally of Rod Blagojevich about the senate seat last summer. The revelation doesn't appear to be crippling to Burris' candidacy, though it did raise the question of whether he had contradicted himself.

The Illinois state House, meanwhile, is expected to vote as early as today on whether to impeach Blagojevich, after a House panel voted unanimously yesterday to recommend that he be booted. Speaking of getting booted, Blagojevich's lawyers would now like Patrick Fitzgerald kicked off the prosecution team. (At the very least, we now have an answer to this future trivia question: What do Blagojevich and Scooter Libby have in common?)

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