History's Lessons for a Wired White House...Tracking the Evolution of Change.gov...Incoming Administration Faces Information Overload...Palin's Unstoppable Online Power...Just How Historic Was Obama's Presidential Run?...American Diplomacy in the Age of Facebook...and more.

On the same day that pranksters produce a remarkable faux New York Times intended to highlight what's expected from President-elect Obama, the "source" behind those "Africa is a continent?" stories about Sarah Palin is revealed to be a total hoax.

We noted a while back the curious case of an anti-Sarah Palin email sent by two New York women to 40-odd friends that attracted a reported 150,000 responses. That humble missive has evolved into a multimedia campaign.; In these final days, the presidential campaigns are scrambling to reach out to undecideds or soft supporters and convert them into votes; Now that Obama has won -- the WebMarketing Association's Web Award for the better of the two candidates' websites, of course -- thoughts are turning to how a President Obama would use his much-vaunted Internet savvy to actually govern; and a good deal more.

How often do you think MoveOn's Adam Green and conservative firebrand Grover ("drown it in the bathtub") Norquist are of one mind? Trust me, not that often. But Norquist has just jumped on the bi-partisan Open Debate Coalition train led by Green, Change Congress's Larry Lessig, and others; No matter whether the thought of Sarah Palin as the next President of the United States puts a smile on your face or a chill up your spine, you have to admire excellent Flash work where you find it; The SEIU HQ down in DC has been busy putting together something of a web all-star team; and much more.

David Kendall, the University of Tennessee student accused of hacking Gov. Sarah Palin's email account, was indicted today by a federal grand jury. According to the indictment, Kendall is charged with unlawful access to Palin's email account, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in jail and a $250,000 fine. One can certainly imagine that with the high profile nature of the case, and the public disclosure of Palin's materials, federal prosecutors will be gunning for Mr. Kendall.

Bill McGeveran, an information law expert, raises questions about the government's case at the Info/Law blog.

Professors Orin Kerr and Paul Ohm, probably the two most knowledgeable scholars in the country on the subject of computer crime, are both dubious about the way the indictment achieves felony charges. (In short, the unauthorized intrusion into Palin’s e-mail needs to have been in furtherance of some other crime or tort; in typical cases that would be fraud or identity theft, but here it isn’t clear what that other crime or tort might be.)

This is an absolute first and frankly it's f---ing brilliant. The California Democratic Party has a giant electronic billboard up somewhere near a Los Angeles-area rally that Republican VP candidate is doing today that is displaying live text-message questions people are sending in. On top of that, the whole thing is streaming live back onto the web using UStream.tv. Check it out:

With word coming that the show will go on, we turn attention to tonight's first '08 presidential debate at Ole Miss. Change Congress's Larry Lessig and scores of other open democracy advocates from across the political spectrum (including PdF and techPres) have issued a call for the debates to be free. The ask? It's two-fold; : So, what on the political landscape has Twitterers tweet-tweet-tweeting away? Well, as of this morning, it's Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric and, relatedly, Miss Teen USA. Twitter has launched an Election '08 site; and a great deal more.

How long will it be before someone mashes Gov. Sarah Palin's latest interview with Katie Couric together with Miss Teen South Carolina? UPDATE: I've posted one strong contender, but methinks the best approach is the one that shows the two women speaking side by side, taking turns...

It's probably not every day that Vermont socialist Senator Bernie Sanders and Kentucky's uber-conservative Senator Jim Bunning get nearly the same emails for standing up against the same bill. But emails are pouring into every corner of Capitol Hill objecting to the Bush Administration's $700 billion no-oversight bailout measure; A quick peek at InTrade's Electoral Vote Predictor might be a fun way to take the temperature of the betting class, but FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver reports that the market seems funny of late; "Joe Biden's gaffes have become so excessive that we've now dedicated an entire site," says the Republican National Committee, which had previously been keeping track of the Dem VP candidates supposedly goofs with a simple clock; and much more.

As you might have heard, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account was violated and its contents -- including family photos and contact information -- splayed across message boards, gossip blogs, and elsewhere across the web; The Commission on Presidential Debates and MySpace have gotten together to spawn MyDebates.org; The House Committee on Financial Services recently considered the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights, a bill opposed by commercial banks, local chambers of commerce, and others in the financial industry. So it just might be interesting to know how much money those interests where kicking into the coffers of the members of Congress vetting the bill, right? That's precisely what you can do with Maplight's remarkable new congressional committee tool; and much more.