If you’re looking for a silver lining in last week’s hung jury, you’ve found it. He’s not claiming they’ve done anything wrong — on the contrary, he wants them to testify that the wheeling and dealing for The One’s seat was standard political horse-trading — but the optics of Rahm and Dingy Harry on the stand being grilled by “Fitz” are, in the immortal words of Blago himself, bleepin’ golden. Suggested first question for Rahm’s cross-examination: In light of the contacts with Blagojevich about Obama’s seat and the attempts to bribe Sestak and Romanoff into quitting the Senate primaries in Pennsylvania and Colorado, precisely how many political races/appointments has the White House attempted to “influence”? The answer may surprise you!

The judge is meeting with lawyers on both sides on Thursday to set a date for the new trial. Ed predicted a few days ago that it won’t start until next year, after the midterms; even if he’s wrong about that and the court moves it up to this fall, don’t forget that the defense doesn’t present witnesses until after the prosecution’s case is finished. (Jury selection’s bound to be painstaking too given the holdout problem in the first trial.) So, yeah, this is unlikely to be a nasty October surprise for the White House. But January surprises are nice too, and in the meantime, Blago can concentrate on hanging out with Batman or whatever other important business he’s up to these days. Click the image to watch.