Turns out Maureen Dowd’s Hillary-whacking column written from New Hampshire on primary night was actually written from Jerusalem.
The Horse’s Mouth: Is The Politico‘s big mea culpa just talk or will it lead to action?
Let’s put this together. South Carolina should be Mike Huckabee’s state. John McCain is rising in South Carolina. Mike Huckabee’s got the push-poll kingpins in his back pocket.
Hmmm …
Not sure I’ve ever seen the national anthem sung before a debate.
9:16 PM … I find it fascinating that they just managed to have a highly technical and detailed discussion of economic and fiscal policy that was nevertheless complete nonsense.
9:24 PM … We can be a shining family on a hill.
9:25 PM … Fred Thompson would seem a lot more hardcore tearing into Mike Huckabee if he didn’t keep having to look down at his notes to remember what his answer was.
9:35 PM … Brit Hume is really a piece of work. The Captain of that Cruiser in the Gulf reacted “passively” because he didn’t open fire on those Iranian speedboats.
9:39 PM … Say what you will about McCain, he can’t put silly Brit Hume in his place on this second-guess the Navy captain question.
9:42 PM … There Brit is again with “passive”.
9:52 PM … Ron Paul is really making the most of being allowed to rejoin the Fox debates. He’s taking over the whole thing.
10:13 PM … Hadn’t noticed this before. But on more than half his questions, Fred Thompson runs out of things to say before his time has run out. And then he goes into like a free association cliche fugue. Check him out next time he draws a question. (He’s also hit the tanning booth, but that’s admittedly less substantive.)
10:37 PM … Wonderful, another completely surreal Frank Luntz focus group. Only this time it’s Fred Thompson whose personality cult they’ve joined. It’s really like watching an informercial.
10:39 PM … Remember that Frank told TPMmuckraker’s Paul Kiel that he tries to get repeaters to come to his focus groups.
NYT’s Kit Seelye on Fred …
9:41 p.m. | Confrontation at Sea Mr. Thompson rocks tonight. Asked about the recent confrontation between United States warships and Iranian speedboats, he suggests casually that if Iranâs Revolutionary Guard becomes more hostile, the Iranians will see those virgins theyâve been looking for.
Special thanks to TPM Reader TT.
From the NYT …
Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, said he was rethinking his neutral stance in his stateâs presidential primary out of disappointment at comments by Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton that he saw as diminishing the historic role of civil rights activists.
Mr. Clyburn, a veteran of the civil rights movement and a power in state Democratic politics, put himself on the sidelines more than a year ago to help secure an early primary for South Carolina, saying he wanted to encourage all candidates to take part. But he said recent remarks by the Clintons that he saw as distorting civil rights history could change his mind.
âWe have to be very, very careful about how we speak about that era in American politics,â said Mr. Clyburn, who was shaped by his searing experiences as a youth in the segregated South and his own activism in those days. âIt is one thing to run a campaign and be respectful of everyoneâs motives and actions, and it is something else to denigrate those. That bothered me a great deal.â
Who was the big winner in last night’s FOX News-sponsored GOP debate from South Carolina? His name was Ronald Reagan …
Late Update: Here’s Election Central’s Debate Roundup.