Sorry for the light posting this a.m.; had a family member in surgery back in Georgia (he’s okay) and was a little distracted. Anyway, here’s some lunch treats for an extremely slow news day:

* Katie Couric issues “open invitation” to Sarah Palin to appear on her new daytime TV show. Why would she want to be trapped and persecuted again?

* AZ SecState Ken Bennett backs off threat to remove Obama from ballot, even sort of apologizes. Ridicule sometimes works.

* But in other news from AZ GOP Birther fever swamps, Sheriff Joe Arpaio sends “posse” to Hawaii to examine Obama birth certificate.

* Kathleen Parker joins the pity party for Chief Justice John Roberts, who is being persecuted by mean old liberals.

* Artur Davis, who’s been popping up on the pages of National Review, reportedly mulling party- and state-switch to run as Republican for Congress in Virginia. That’ll show those Alabama Democrats!

And in non-political news:

* Yglesias notes Mark Zuckerberg actually did himself–not his company or its investors–quite well in Facebook IPO.

Back in a bit.

Ed Kilgore

Ed Kilgore is a political columnist for New York and managing editor at the Democratic Strategist website. He was a contributing writer at the Washington Monthly from January 2012 until November 2015, and was the principal contributor to the Political Animal blog.