Made of Straw

It's true the two small states aren't very representative. But they do force the candidates into retail campaigning.

Politicians utter all kinds of applause lines at debates, and then good reporters check the facts.

"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has criticized Senator Barack Obama for saying he would rule out using nuclear weapons to root out terrorists in Afghanistan or Pakistan, made a similar comment regarding Iran last year, before she became a presidential candidate," says the New York Times.

"'I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table,' Mrs. Clinton told Bloomberg Television in an interview in April 2006, responding to a question about how the Bush administration would try to prevent Iran from building up its nuclear program.

"Last week, Mr. Obama said it would be a 'profound mistake' for the United States to use nuclear weapons to fight terrorism in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Asked to reply, Mrs. Clinton said: 'I think that presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use or non-use of nuclear weapons.' "

It would be naive to take everything these candidates say at face value.

As Bush weighs a cut in corporate tax rates--not that he could get it through a Democratic Congress--Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum exclaims:

"He really is like a windup doll, isn't he? No matter what's going on in the outside world, no matter what problems we're facing, no matter what the political situation is, you pull the cord and he says 'Tax cuts!' It's like he's the Manchurian President."

Could the Thompson non-campaign be a bubble? "I don't want to rush anyone," says Josh Marshall. "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?

"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."

AT&T admits censoring anti-Bush lyrics by Pearl Jam. So much for free speech.