In Prop 8-land, people are buzzing about this: The Rev. Rick Warren, the evangelical Southern California pastor who gave the invocation at President Obama's inauguration, told Larry King last week that he didn't campaign for Prop 8, the California initiative ban on same-sex marriage. In fact, he did. In this Politico story, Warren's pr agents try to walk this one back by arguing that Warren was too tired from his Holy Week duties. Apparently, exhaustion makes one more favorable to same-sex marriage. Which suggests a strategy for the likely initiative battle to overturn Prop 8 in 2010: set off fog horns and shine bright lights in key precincts in the middle of the night.

On a more serious note, Warren's vacillation is as strong a sign as any which way the public is moving on this issue.

I had planned to spend today making phone calls on various stories. Bad idea.

No one's here. The governor, the lieutenant governor, the leaders of the state assembly and the state senate, the attorney general, the secretary of state, the mayors of San Francisco and Los Angeles -- they're all in Washington for the inaugural. In fact, the ceremony was dominated by Californians. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein presided. Feinstein and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi escorted Obama in. Orange County's Rev. Rick Warren said the opening prayer.

With everyone out of town, one wonders who is in charge. Fortunately, it's not a bad time for our leaders to be gone, since the state is in such great shape, big budget surplus, no calamity staring us in the face... Oh, yes?... Never mind.

Many same-sex marriage advocates in California are furious at President-Elect Obama for giving the Rev. Rick Warren, who was a strong advocate of the Prop 8 ban on gay marriages, a role in his inauguration. One prominent member of the No on Prop 8 campaign team has declined his invitation to attend the inauguration ceremony as a result.