DAYS, WEEKS, MONTHS, WHO KNOWS? NATO extends Libya operations until September. They told me if I voted for John McCain we’d find ourself slipping into undeclared wars that dragged on far longer than we were promised. And they were right!

I THOUGHT THIS NEVER HAPPENED, BUT IT KEEPS HAPPENING: Woman pleads guilty to lying about rape.

Rodney Peters knew Kimberly St. Charles just four hours before she told police he raped her.

After intense interrogations over two days and following a polygraph test, his bosses suspended him and Peters feared he would be jailed. But because his story was so convincing, police asked more questions of his accuser.

That’s when St. Charles admitted she lied, police said.

“She didn’t know me,” Peters said Tuesday after St. Charles pleaded guilty to making a false alarm, a felony. “She was essentially a stranger.”

She should get more than a slap on the wrist.

JON STEWART ON WIENERGATE.

Related: Anthony Weiner: Don Juan In Hell. “The defensive mixture of entitlement and anger he displayed at the news conference Tuesday in response to many natural questions on his activities is, to put it mildly, unattractive. Like many Lotharios he finds it difficult to ‘man up’ when the pressure is on. His Brooklyn constituents should be ashamed.”

UPDATE: Bad Reviews: Weak: Weiner’s Pal Jon Stewart Plays the ‘Little Dick’ Defense.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Dan Friedman agrees with Stewart: “As luck would have it, I workout in the same health club as Congressman Weiner. I’ve seen him in the shower and buck naked in the locker room. I can tell you without a doubt this is not a picture of the Congressman Weiner – no, make that the Congressman’s wiener – I know. Not by a long shot.” Maybe he’s just not as glad to see you, Dan.

SALARIES: 77,000 Federal Employees Paid More Than Governors. “More than 77,000 federal government employees throughout the country — including computer operators, more than 5,000 air traffic controllers, 22 librarians and one interior designer — earned more than the governors of the states in which they work.”

L.A. TIMES: Sarah Palin Plays The Media Like A Violin. “The tables are turned now. And it’s the best political entertainment of the campaign so far. The media on campaigns is accustomed to being courted, even catered to with assigned airplane seats, meals, transportation to events, seats waiting, transcripts, the upcoming advance schedule, self-serving secrets confided. But now they want/need Palin more than vice versa.”

SYRIA’S 13-YEAR-OLD MARTYR: Sounds like we should have just kept going when we got to the border back in 2003. . . .

FEEELING BETTER YET? Obama’s “Recovery” Turns 2.

Without a lot of fanfare, the Obama economic recovery officially turned 2 this month. Anyone think we’re better off than we were two years ago?

On Tuesday, a trio of reports gave fresh evidence that the answer to this question is no.

Single family home prices dropped in March to their lowest level since April 2009; the consumer Confidence Index tumbled to a six-month low of 60.8; and regional manufacturing is slowing. In the Chicago area, it fell to its lowest level since November 2009.

Yet if you listened to President Obama and his cheerleaders in the press over the past two years, the answer should have been a resounding yes.

Obama promised way back in February 2009 that his $830 billion stimulus plan would unleash “a new wave of innovation, activity and construction” and “ignite spending by businesses and consumers.”

In June 2010, he announced that the recovery was “well under way” and that it “is getting stronger by the day.” A couple months later, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner penned a New York Times op-ed headlined “Welcome to the Recovery.”

Recovery is just around the corner.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “So, I guess it’s Recovery yesterday, and Recovery tomorrow, but never Recovery today.”

JAMES TARANTO: The First Political Scandal Of The Twitter Era. “So it’s possible this is a sex scandal of the pathetic and preposterous sort that ended Chris Lee’s congressional career. If Weiner is on the level, it is a scandal of a different sort. Just how easy is it to defame a prominent person by hacking into his Twitter account? . . . Inevitably this kerfuffle has provoked plays on Weiner’s name, whose pronunciation is the same as ‘wiener.’ We’ve heard some bad puns in our day, but this has to be the wurst.

TOOK THE INSTA-WIFE TO THE E.R. TONIGHT, but everything turned out okay. She’s recovering nicely from the surgery, she just had some aftereffects from the anesthetic.

HEH: Flashback: Guess who officiated at Weiner’s wedding?

SO GO TO BED ALREADY: A good night’s sleep isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.

WELCOME TO the Lloyd Dobler economy.

FATHER’S DAY GIFTS in Tools & Home Improvement.

CHANGE: Mickey Kaus: “The MSM does not seem to be buying Weiner’s line.”

Related: Worst press conference ever? “People who had previously doubted Weiner’s guilt are, I’m sure, now beginning to doubt his innocence. And after a politician famous for his media savvy has such a spectacular meltdown on camera, it’s hard to pretend it’s not newsworthy.” Plus, a question for Jeffrey Toobin.

UPDATE: More here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Hey, remember Jeffrey Toobin?

MORE: C’mon Anthony, Throw ‘Em A Rope!

YOU’RE TOO PRETTY FOR MATH. Funny, nobody ever told me that.

What’s the male equivalent? “You know, you don’t act like a scientist. You’re more like a game show host.”

FOR TRUMP AND PALIN, a Pizza Summit. Mmm. Pizza.

BECAUSE THERE’S MORE MONEY IN IT? Alternet: Why The Democratic Party Has Abandoned The Middle Class In Favor Of The Rich. Also, the rich don’t get hung up on all that tedious middle class morality stuff.

HONEY, PLEASE DON’T GO: “Just as honey has become all the buzz here in the United States, new federal data show that fans of the all-natural, medicinal nectar byproduct are about to get stung by a painful spike in prices and possible shortages. The National Honey Board reports that a pound of honey now costs $5.22, up from $3.78 in 2005. But in Cambridge, Marc Cardullo, marketing manager for the family-owned Cardullo’s Gourmet Shoppe, said prices haven’t taken off yet.”

SLOW LEARNER: Professor Jacobson: I’ve Finally Figured Out Blogging.

WELL, THAT’S CONSISTENT WITH THE POLLS: Fail: House defeats Obama request to raise the debt ceiling, 318-97. “Fully 82 Democrats voted with the GOP — among them Pelosi, Hoyer, and … DNC chief Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, which is all the proof you need of how nervous the White House is about being on the wrong side of this issue.”

BRITISH HEALTH SYSTEM NOT INSPIRING DEVOTION: Why aren’t the masses joining the protests to ‘Save our NHS’? Perhaps because the NHS treats them with utter contempt. “The most striking thing about the ‘Save our NHS’ protests is how small they are. From the handful of professional activists who stormed a branch of NatWest at the weekend, symbolically draped in bloodied bandages, to the various ‘die-ins’ staged by anti-cuts protesters who claim that ‘the poor’ (a horrible Dickensian phrase) will kick the bucket if the Lib-Cons trim anything related to health, the protests have been noisy and headline-grabbing, yes, but tiny in terms of turnout. It isn’t hard to see why. The NHS might be of profound symbolic importance to left-wing activists, but to the general public, to the masses who make up its clientele, it is a patronising, snooping and increasingly politically motivated institution. Save it? Why, exactly?”

MICHAEL WALSH: “MediScare” Tactics And The 2012 Election.

I’m all for cutting Medicare, and I think Paul Ryan has done a great job. Republicans, however, don’t want to be stuck in a Mondale-like role of saying “Whoever’s elected will cut MediCare. Obama won’t tell you that. I just did.” At least, it didn’t work so well for Mondale . . . .

CORY DOCTOROW interviews Tim Harford, author of The Underground Economist, about his new book, Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure.

Meanwhile, I’ll just observe that Harford probably wouldn’t feel that he had to bend over backward to distance himself from, say, an economist who had advised Fidel Castro.