Hillary, Johnny Mac and Mo

The '08 shadowboxing between the junior senator from New York and the senior senator from Arizona has taken a nasty turn.

Hillary Clinton and John McCain, the (ridiculously) early front-runners in their parties, seemed to have a cordial relationship, and why not? She's been working overtime to forge alliances with Republican lawmakers, and he's long been known for teaming up with the likes of Joe Lieberman and defending his friend John Kerry.

But both know they're on a collision course if she runs and they both survive the primaries. And surviving the primaries, for McCain, means showing the conservative base that he'll take on liberals like the former first lady.

McCain took the first swipe after North Korea exploded that nuclear advice and Clinton said her husband's approach was superior: "I would remind Senator Clinton and other Democrats critical of Bush administration policies that the framework agreement her husband's administration negotiated was a failure."

Enter Maureen Dowd. The New York Times columnist granted anonymity to a Hillary aide to throw this punch at the former prisoners of war: "Privately, Hillary's camp was not overly upset by the McCain swipe because it suspected he was doing the bidding of the White House and that he ended up, as one adviser put it, 'looking similar to the way he did on those captive tapes from Hanoi, where he recited the names of his crew mates.' "

That's a spectacularly insensitive comment toward someone who spent 5-1/2 years in the Hanoi Hilton, and Clinton had to apologize, but we still don't know which political genius said it. Imagine the pressure on Clinton to fire the strategist if this had happened in the heat of a presidential campaign.

Act Two involved a dinner between Clinton and McCain and two other senators during a trip to Estonia two years ago, when Hillary suggested a vodka-drinking contest and McCain was said to have a fine old time.

But when McCain was asked about this on "Hannity & Colmes," he said it never happened. "I'm glad to hear, Senator, you weren't drinking shots with Senator Clinton," said an apparently relieved Sean Hannity. McCain also told Jay Leno the incident never happened.

But the Atlantic's Josh Green chatted up the senator and "McCain lit up at the recollection. 'It's been 50 years since I'd been in a drinking game,' said McCain. ... He added, admiringly, 'She can really hold her liquor.' "

That prompted Dowd to call Mr. Straight Talk's office, where an (anonymous) aide explained: "After dinner, they had drinks. It was not a drinking contest, the way you and I think of a drinking contest. John had two drinks."

Doesn't that sound...rather Clintonian? It all depends on the meaning of the word contest . Let's hope McCain takes a more sober approach to describing his nightlife and that Clinton's staff resists cheap POW analogies.

Kudos to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune for tracking down the Malta priest who Mark Foley says abused him decades ago. And what restraint in the writing: