Primary Pundit by Michael McCord

McCain, who claimed again and again that we are actually winning in Iraq (a view being disputed by an increasing number of folks in his own party) the standard fear card by asking “Have you forgotten about 9/11?” This is at best a dubious and frankly (at best) misleading response that has been debunked so often it’s hard to believe that a candidate of McCain’s stature would resort to rhetoric usually reserved for pundit blowhard firm of Colter, Hannity and Limbaugh.

2) Mitt Romney fought back and let the conservative base know he wasn’t going to be picked on by the likes of pit bull Sam Brownback on the question of his late-life conversion to anti-abortion standard bearer. “I get tired of people who are holier than thou, because they’ve been pro-life longer than I have.” It was a quick switch from explaining (apparently with little success) about the evolution of his philosophy. He’s fighting back now. Wonder if he’ll say the same thing to the flipper dolphin that follows Romney on the campaign trail?

3) I wonder what they are drinking in Tom Tancredo’s congressional district? Tancredo is the most eccentric of the GOP gang but his anti-immigration screams and his vow to nuke Mecca in retaliation for a hypothetical terrorist nuke attack on the U.S. walk a fine line between sanity and, well, not. When Bush’s State Department rebuked his creative “24” approach to foreign relations, Tancredo took it as badge of honor.

4) Rudy Giuliani had the best line when he couldn’t pin down his personal professional mistakes in less than 30 seconds and Romney was too eager and flattened his observation that Democrat Barack Obama had gone from “Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove.” It was such a well-rehearsed delivery that it came across as phony.

5) Speaking of Giuliani, his campaign manager Michael DuHaime was on NPR a few days ago and he danced like a pro, down playing expectations for now about the extent of importance of Iowa and new Hampshire and South Carolina next year. According to the “All Things Considered” transcript DuHaime observed “generally what happens is Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina tend to whittle that field down to two or three or maybe even four strong candidates, so I think it behooves any campaign to have a long term strategy, I’m confident the mayor will do well, but also know that the campaign likely won’t be decided in those first two or three states.”

6) Speaking of 9/11, it was six years ago that George W. Bush -- while on vacation and doing manly work chopping wood in Crawford, Texas -- received his infamous CIA briefing “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US.” He was so inspired or alarmed that he literally did nothing but return to his vacation. According to numerous reports, he did fine time to wisecrack about how nice it was that the briefer was covering his ass by giving the report. Nothing like inspiration from above to set the tone.