Hillary Clinton is given a second chance to dodge the lobbyist money question – and she runs with it. That and other Tuesday night debate news in the Election Central Debate Roundup.

In the wake of the FISA bill, Democrats ask: Was intelligence chief Mike McConnell bamboozled by the Bush administration? Or is he a bamboozler himself?

Ben Stevens update alert. We thought Ben Stevens, disgraced son of semi-disgraced Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) had signed on with a fishing boat to make a buck in his post influence-peddling career. Now it seems he’s working as a crewman aboard a Shell oil exploratory vessel.

Asked why none of his sons are serving in Iraq, Mitt Romney says they’re serving in another way: by working for his campaign for president.

Leaves me snarkless. You’ll have to provide your own.

Late Update: The Romney campaign says the remarks were taken out of context by the Associated Press, and has now provided audio and transcript. Take a look. — gs

Okay, so now we’ve listened to this audio that the Romney campaign released to rebut the AP story which quoted him saying that his sons had chosen to work for his presidential campaign as opposed to fighting in Iraq as a way to serve their country.

I’d say that listening to it in the context of his rather lengthy gee-golly explanation takes a bit of the edge off the remark. But not that much. Basically instead of shooting right from the hip with his sons’ campaign work as a form of national service, this point comes at the end of a much lengthier silly response.

But, hey, you decide.

Late Update: I think TPM’s Eric Kleefeld, currently subbing over at Andrew Sullivan’s site, gets closest to the mark on this one, adopting what amounts to a mens rea analysis of Romney’s buffoonery. Eric doesn’t believe that Romney “is so insensitive that he would intentionally compare the service of our troops to people working for his campaign.” But Romney’s ad lib pablum is so mindless, inane and self-serving that such an unfortunate incident was bound to occur sooner or later.

We’ve brought you footage of Hillary Clinton’s and John Edwards’s Q&A Breakout Sessions at Yearly Kos. In today’s specially-tripod-enabled episode of TPMtv, we give you highlights of Barack Obama’s session …

Late Update: If you missed Tuesday night’s AFL-CIO debate, here is a clip of the question posed by retired union steel worker Steve Skvara, the man referred to by Huckabee and Matthews in the above clip:

I don’t want to rush anyone. But are we ready to say that Fred Thompson’s proto-incipient campaign for president might not be quite ready to sweep the current crop of goofballs from the field?

Or, isn’t there a serious possibility now that this guy may never actually get into the race? If for no other reason than to salvage some of the aura of dignity upon which the lucrative acting career is based?

Today Thompson tapped his third campaign manager. Which means he’s now operating at a ratio of 3 managers to 0 campaigns. And I guess that means a ratio of like infinity or something like that. But let’s not get distracted by that.

In any case, I need to ask you a favor. Can you send me links to quotes of glitz columnists and yakkers gushing about Fred’s gravitas, Reaganosity and generally inevitable waltz to the Republican nomination?

Apparently there’s a spontaneous grassroots movement to draft Alan Keyes into the GOP primary race — oddly enough, the movement has emerged on Keyes’ own website.

Sigh. Andrew Golis’ TPMtv interview with Time mag’s Jay Carney, shot at Yearly Kos, seems to be developing into a genuine controversy, though I’m not even sure what they’re arguing about.