Wow. Prosecutors are dropping their case against Ted Stevens. Apparently, they withheld evidence at his trial that the Alaskan senator could have used in his defense. They will not seek a new trial. The 85-year-old was convicted last year on seven counts of lying on a financial disclosure form about hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts for his home. The grumpy old man appealed his case (but lost his re-election bid).

The Post reports that the allegations of prosecutor misconduct were brought up by an F.B.I. agent:

"The agent, Chad Joy, alleged in a complaint that prosecutors intentionally withheld evidence from defense attorneys during the trial. He also said that an FBI agent had an inappropriate relationship with a star prosecution witness. That agent wore a skirt one day at trial to please the witness, Joy alleged. The complaint surfaced in December.

Prosecutors have said that their legal team did nothing wrong and that most of the issues Joy raised were addressed by the judge during the trial."

TPM has a rundown of the entire saga. Stevens is famous for his "series of tubes."

Yeah, yeah, so we skipped the morning roundup. Sorry 'bout that! As an act of penance, we present our post-lunch Olympic digest:

*The Post reports that Bantamweight D.C. boxer Gary Russell Jr. will forgo a shot at the gold.

*Wonkette speculates on a link between the opening ceremonies and Ted Stevens' press conference.

*Slate introduces their cutting-edge Beijing Games Twitterfeed! If only we had thought of that....

*Brightest Young Things on Project Runway's U.S. Olympic Costume Challenge!

*HuffPost gives the opening ceremonies an exhaustive photo & video treatment. Too bad it's banned in Beijing....

*A shocker from The Hill: Bush plans to attend church in Beijing this Sunday! Later that night, he'll check out Lebron James and the rest of the U.S b-ball team. Lebron, meanwhile, sounds pretty confident.

*Inspirational: Mr. T in D.C. comes within two pounds of his target weight!

Photo courtesy of H@r@ld