Ladies and gentlemen of the jury:

This is a day the Sketchwriter has been awaiting for years. William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson, the former congressman from New Orleans, is going on trial over that "alleged" bribery scheme. I say "alleged" because that's the convention in these cases, and of course he is innocent until proven guilty. But Jefferson has a couple of tricky things to explain away:

• Why he was filmed by the FBI accepting a briefcase containing $100,000 from an FBI informant and putting the briefcase in the trunk of his car at the Pentagon City mall.
• Why $90,000 of that money was found by the FBI in the freezer of his Capitol Hill apartment, in small bundles disguised as leftovers.

But Sketchreaders are a wily and crafty bunch. Your challenge today: Imagine a scenario under which one or both of the above facts can be explained as a perfectly innocent misunderstanding. Your best ideas will be presented to defense lawyers tomorrow on page A2 of The Washington Post.

With thanks,

The William Jefferson Legal Defense Fund

Update, 12:21 p.m.: The judge has recessed for lunch, so we'll have to wait until 1:15 to see how Jefferson's lawyer is going to explain the cold cash in his opening argument. But there was a key development this morning: Prosecutors flashed pictures of the frozen food containers that hid the $90,000. Most prominent were a Pillsbury Pie Crusts box (with the little dough-boy) and Boca Burgers.

Boca Burgers? Should we anticipate the Vegetarian Defense?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is keeping an open mind about Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

"We have the whole package here," he announced in his office this morning with the smiling Supreme Court nominee seated to his left, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said he would take the judge's academic credentials into account when assessing her nomination.

"Academically, I mean, I am terribly impressed. Princeton, summa cum laude. We have Yale Law School, editor of the law review. That's very impressive," Reid said, as the judge smiled, blinked, nodded her head and mouthed a "thank you."

The Democratic leader hinted that he would also weigh Sotomayor's professional qualifications when forming his opinion.

"I've been very impressed with learning everything I have about you. A prosecutor, private practice, and now a judge for these many years. A trial judge for those many years and now appellate judge. And so we could not have anyone better qualified," he said.

Then, Reid made a startling admission: "Of course, I'm somewhat biased."

No! Mr. Leader, have you prejudged the nominee?

The winner of yesterday's Etch-a-Sketch: "Goombay," who responded to my request to identify the new era of the Republican Party by commenting:

"The new era will begin when the blanket references to Ronald Reagan cease. We get it...Great guy, great era for the party. Know who does not get it: everyone under 30 years of age."

This comment, posted half an hour before the speech by Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, turned out to be prescient. Steele did, indeed, make three Reagan references in his speech about the future, a point noted in my column.

Today, your Sketchwriter is planning to see Orrin Hatch roll out a 100 mpg Hummer. I'm told that this most unusual plug-in hybrid (the truck, not the Utah senator) will prove that Americans can have their cake and eat it, too -- a fuel-efficient truck that can squash a Prius without denting a bumper.

This gives me a thought for today's Etch-a-Sketch, although I must admit up front that I'm not sure it will work. Your mission: To determine which type of car or truck various lawmakers and administration officials should be driving to best suit their personalities.

We know, for example, that Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) drives a Hummer (not the 100 mpg type), while Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) drives a Prius. President Obama and his spokesman both drive the Ford Escape hybrid, while former campaign manager David Plouffe just picked up a politically-correct Ford Fusion hybrid. A few years ago, I caught Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) -- after a gas station event bemoaning high gas prices -- getting into an 18 mpg Chrysler LHS, even though her office was only a block away. (Her staff later protested that it was a staffer's car and that the senator owns a Prius.)

I understand from the Post marketing people that the typical Sketch reader is a Mini Cooper driver, so you are obviously a group of savvy motorists. Who should have the Harley, who gets the PT Cruiser? A Subaru? A rusty old Dodge?

Thanks to those of you who submitted "enhanced interrogation" recommendations for former Bush administration lawyers yesterday, particularly "Mauckjw," whose ideas appeared in today's column on the subject. Many others were insightful, too, except for the one who called me a "dipsh@t."

Today the Sketch will go to the new National Harbor development, where Disney is planning to build a resort hotel. But today the entertainment there is being provided by Michael Steele as he addresses the Republican National Committee. According to the advance text, he's going to tell us that "the era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over." Also over, presumably, is the era of Michael Steel calling Rush Limbaugh "incendiary" and "ugly," labeling abortion an "individual choice," and confessing that his office is too masculine.

This, naturally, leads us to today's question: With the era of apologizing over, what will the new era of the Republican Party be? As usual, I'll crib from your answers for tomorrow's column.

Warm regards,

The Dipsh@t

Welcome back to Etch-a-Sketch, the game in which you, the reader, do my job for me while I go to lunch.

Today's challenge: Torture.

I attended an event this morning in which Kevin Zeese, a Naderite lawyer, filed petitions seeking to have 12 former Bush administration officials disbarred for their role in the torture memos. As it happens, that is roughly the number of "enhanced interrogation techniques" endorsed by Bush lawyers. This would seem to present the possibility of an elegant solution: forget about the attempts to disbar or prosecute these former officials, and instead subject them to the very same techniques they approved. Because they said these techniques are perfectly legal and do not cause long-term harm, they should have no objection to the techniques being applied to them. At the same time, this would satisfy the urge for vengeance on the left, while also freeing up our courts, the Congress and the administration to press ahead with other matters.

So your job is to mix and match from the following list of Bush officials and enhanced interrogation techniques. Please explain why a particular person would be a good candidate for a particular one of these techniques.

Former Bush Administration Officials

• David Addington, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff


• John Ashcroft, attorney general


• Stephen Bradbury, Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel


• Jay Bybee, Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel


• Michael Chertoff, homeland security secretary


• Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense


• Alice Fisher, director of the Justice Department's Criminal Division


• Timothy Flanigan, deputy White House counsel


• Alberto Gonzales, attorney general and White House counsel


• William Haynes, Pentagon lawyer


• Michael Mukasey, attorney general


• John Yoo, Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel

Approved Interrogation Techniques:

• Sleep deprivation: Detainee is deprived of sleep for more than 48 hours.


• Nudity: Used to cause psychological discomfort.


• Dietary manipulation: Substituting liquid meal replacements for solid food.


• Abdominal slap: Striking the abdomen with the back of an open hand.


• Attention grasp: Grasping detainee with both hands and pulling forward


• Facial slap: Slapping detainee's face with fingers spread.


• Facial hold: Keeps head immobile


• Waterboarding: Pouring water over face of detainee, who is lying at an angle on his back, head lowered.


• Water dousing: Cold water is poured on detainee.


• Wall standing: Forcing detainee to stand with feet spread, arms outstretched, fingers resting on the wall, not permitted to move.


• Cramped confinement: Restricting movement in a typically dark space


• Confinement with insects: use of a stinging insect to threaten a suspect in a confinement box


• Walling: Slamming detainee into a wall.

If your preferred technique is not on the above menu -- say, forced shaving for David Addington -- some substitutions will be permitted. Please ask your server.

Congratulations to "zippypinhead1," who wrote the lead of today's Washington Sketch column: "Calling Jimmy Carter to testify about energy security is like calling Michael Vick to testify about pet care."

Today's assignment is tricky. I'm in an excellent hearing right now in which the Senate Commerce Committee is attempting to rescue Disney and Vegas. But next door there's a Judiciary Committee hearing on torture. It won't be very funny, but there's word that former interrogator Ali Soufan will be testifying from behind a screen. Help me figure out how to combine the themes of the two hearings. For example: What enhanced interrogation techniques would Disney or Vegas casinos use if they were put in charge of questioning terrorism suspects?

Thank you for all those excellent Limbaugh jokes yesterday. I loaded up today's column with them, but the editors, God bless 'em, decided every last one of them "crossed the line" and therefore had to be removed.

Still, let us not be discouraged. This afternoon, Jimmy Carter will appear before John Kerry's Senate Foreign Relations committee to speak on the subject of "Energy Security: Historical Perspectives and Modern Challenges."

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Share your favorite 1970s energy memories. Gas lines? Sweaters? Killer rabbits? Okay, that last one had nothing to do with energy, but you get the idea. I'll be back to collect your thoughts for inclusion in my next column -- unless the editors have other plans.

UPDATE, 2:07 p.m.: Good stuff. I've got to work in that SNL skit (below).

Please help me to complete the following SAT-style analogy: Calling Jimmy Carter to testify about energy security is like calling _______ to testify about ____________.

Examples:
George W. Bush/ Franco-American relations
Bill Clinton/ Sexual harassment policy

Good morning.

Today, let us try a new game in which I, the Sketchwriter, get you, the Sketchreader, to do my work for me while I go to the gym, eat lunch and listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio. I call this Etch-a-Sketch. Today, your assignment is to come up with Limbaugh jokes that don't "cross the line." Or maybe cross the line just a little bit.

There has been much chatter about whether Wanda Sykes "crossed the line" at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday night when she supposed that Rush was the 20th hijacker. But
you don't know where the line is until you've crossed it. Let us, then, probe the line and figure out what kind of Rush humor I can get away with in tomorrow's column. Can we joke about his weight? His drug use? His megalomania?

My plan is to plagiarize your material. But you will recognize your words and know that you have written the Sketch while I was sleeping off the OxyContin. (Sorry, was that over the line?) I will return here during the day to monitor progress, or lack thereof.

Thank you, in advance, for doing my job for me.

UPDATE, 2:54 p.m.: I'm nearly through the third hour of Rush's show today and just checked on how you guys are doing on my column. It seems just about everybody is over the line -- but many are quite funny.

Some early favorites:

Expatriate: "Rush Limbaugh is a normal guy, just like you and me. He pulls his jack-boots on one leg at a time."

Mrtees100: "Rush is a real patriot. I heard he donated blood for the swine flu vaccine." And: "Rush is so fat that he's now the poster boy for pork barrel spending."

Mauckjw: "Q: What's the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg? A: One's a flaming Nazi gasbag, the other's a dirigible."

JRM2: "Talent on (sub-prime) Loan From God."

Lastyearsmodel: "Rush should run for president. His motto -- a chicken in every pot, and a jockey on every lawn."

Hiberniantears: "Rush Limpbaugh is the Doughberry Pillboy of the GOP." And: "Have you seen Rush Limbaugh's new shoes? No? Neither has he."

Davestickler: "There's a reason why Rush thinks gas is an inexhaustible resource." And: "Rush Limbaugh: Too big to fail."

Hlabadie: "Rush thinks health care reform involves making it easier to go doctor shopping." And: "Have you ever noticed that Rush looks like the love child of Hermann Goering and a Zeppelin?"

Ped1: "Rush would have been the 20th hijacker, but canceled when he learned the airlines were going to charge him for a second seat."

marcedward1: "Rush is so fat, to get him into the production booth they have to butter the inside of the door and hold a Twinkie on the other side."

(Rush didn't bring up the Sykes assault during his show today, raising two possibilities: 1. He's rising above it all, or 2. He is, in fact, the 20th hijacker. Feel free to share your guesses here, and see tomorrow's Sketch for the correct answer.)

The enemy is stealthy and bloodthirsty. It attacks innocent victims without warning, while they sleep.

Fortunately, the federal government is on the case. In a hotel ballroom in Crystal City yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency convened the first-ever National Bed Bug Summit -- a veritable Yalta Conference for the species Cimex lectularius. With help from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and even the Pentagon, the EPA assembled scientists, state and local officials, and a colony of exterminators to buzz about such topics as "Bed Bug Perspectives," "Bed Bug Basics" and "Government Responses to Bed Bugs."

"These insects can have a life-altering impact," warned panelist Richard Cooper of Cooper Pest Solutions.

"They are showing up in some of the finest hotels," contributed Saul Hernandez, an aide to the congressman who introduced H.R. 6068, "The Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2008."

All this for an insect the size of an apple seed that has a painless bite and is not known to spread disease?

Read the whole Sketch

In case you've been dying for more bad news about the economy, here's a grave new indicator: Even the death industry is in a hole.

It has long been suspected that the funeral business is immune from economic cycles, that the Grim Reaper tends not to follow the stock market. But this time, funeral homes are discovering that their clients' thrift -- sheet-metal urns instead of bronze caskets, cheese-and-cracker nibbles instead of traditional funeral luncheons -- is positively killing profits.

So funeral directors did what everybody else does: They asked for a federal bailout. "We recognized that there may be a situation where a lot of folks who were displaced or unemployed might need some help in paying for their funerals," John Fitch Jr., lobbyist for the National Funeral Directors Association, explained yesterday at the group's annual gathering, at the Mayflower Hotel. "We had some preliminary discussions about providing some stimulus payments to the states" for funerals, he added.

Read the whole Sketch