A dispatch from the McClatchy Newspapers Washington Bureau:

Former White House adviser Claude Allen tearfully pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor theft charge Friday, telling a Montgomery County judge that he lost his bearings after working 14-hour days and getting little sleep in the "tumultuous time" after Hurricane Katrina.

"Something did go very wrong," said Allen, who began crying during his remarks to the court. "I failed to restrain myself ... I did not appreciate what was going on."

That's right, folks: Katrina made him shoplift. On twenty-five separate occasions.

The judge gave Allen two years' criminal probation, 40 hours of community service, and $1350 in fines. If he stays out of trouble for the length of his probation, the conviction will be removed from his criminal record.

Say it ain't so, Claude! Who put him up to it? The evil twin?

Claude Allen, the former Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, is set to plead guilty, McClatchy reports. He'll admit to a single misdemeanor: for "fraudulently stealing items worth less than $500 from a Target store." He'll get no jail time - just $850 in restitution to Target Corp. and one month's probation. That's a pretty sweet deal considering police alleged that he stole over $5,000 from Target and Hecht stores. He faced up to 18 months in jail.

So what's next for Allen? Oh, he'll bounce right back:

Friends of Allen, a well-known conservative who rose from a senator's press aide to one of the top jobs in the White House, said Wednesday that the criminal conviction shouldn't keep him from a future in politics.

"You know, people are more forgiving than you generally expect," said Carter Wrenn of Raleigh, N.C., a friend who was a political strategist for Helms and has known Allen since the early 1980s, when the recent college graduate was a spokesman for Helms' re-election campaign.

For those of you who have forgotten the details of Allen's forgivable crimes, he shoplifted from a Target store, and also repeatedly returned items he'd never bought.