Back at City Hall, Carcetti is offering assorted homeless proposals. "What about trailers?" he asks. "Like FEMA. We set up trailers to act as temp housing for some of the shelter population." Well, that's gone swimmingly for FEMA lately, hasn't it? More to the point though, Carcetti's aides point out that trailers cost a pretty penny and wouldn't even qualify as a drop in the bucket given the number of people they have on the street. "It's symbolic," Carcetti explains. "You know, we're doing what we can with a civic disaster. Like New Orleans." Carcetti for Governor: Now More than Ever, Marylanders Need Cheap Symbolism and Empty Gestures Aimed at Shaming Our Opposition. Ah, but cheap symbolism doesn't come cheaply -- keeping the existing homeless shelters open around the clock is going to put the health department in the red and then there's all the police department overtime coming due. The bottom line is that if the current crisis goes on for more than a month, then Carcetti faces the prospect of cutbacks throughout city agencies and maybe even teacher layoffs. That does not look good on a campaign bumper sticker: Carcetti in '08: Let's Be Totally Boned Together.

Well, the jury in the Clay Davis case must have deliberated for about 30 seconds, because Clay and Murphy are on the steps of the courthouse, exulting in another famous victory. Jeez, how awful Bond's cross-examination and closing arguments must have been. ("Senator Davis, I put it to you that your are fibbing." "Am not." "Oh. No further questions then.") Speaking of the unfortunate state's attorney, he and Pearlman emerge from the courthouse with the Clay Davis victory celebration in full swing. "What the fuck just happened?" a shell-shocked Bond asks. "Whatever it was, they don't teach it in law school," Pearlman sighs. Really? Sitting There Like a Lump While the Defense Runs Rings Around You isn't part of the curriculum? I thought that came during the first year, right after Contract Law.

To the Sun, where Gus is putting the story on the outcome of the Davis trial to bed -- "45 inches of Clay Davis playing not just the race card but the whole deck," he says. That's when Rebecca Corbett approaches him -- the HBO cast list says she's the Sun's Regional Affairs Editor, but apparently she's also the Editor in Charge of Griping About Templeton's Copy since this is the second time she's done that this season. This time around, it's that hideous I-am-one-with-the-streets puff piece that got Klebanowed. "It's embarrassing, ain't it?" mutters Gus, who takes this opportunity to verbalize his trust issues with Templeton -- namely that there is no trust. "I send him back on the street to own his mistake," Gus continues, "he comes back with some bullshit about stolen identities. I don't give a fuck he gets took. Everybody gets took now and then...it's about not owning up to it." Corbett wonders -- no doubt rhetorically -- if this is the first time Templeton's ever lied about something, just because it's the first time he got caught in a lie. "If he'll lie about a correction..." Gus muses. "...Then would he lie to make a story better than it ought to be?" Corbett says, finishing the thought. Gus thinks back to that too-good-to-be-true item about the wheelchair-bound kid at the Orioles opener. "A black kid from the Westside, crazy for baseball?" Gus asks skeptically. "Basketball, yeah. Football, sure." Then he leaps to his feet and walks off. "I don't want to call another reporter a liar," he says, as he heads past Corbett. Sounds like you just did, daddio.