Fred's Couch Moment

The Frank Luntz focus group, by the way, loved John McCain, the candidate the media have written off. And they couldn't stand Rudy Giuliani, who one woman said talked too much about New York.

"Major Republican presidential candidates rallied behind President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq during a campaign debate Wednesday night that included new sparring over their records on controlling illegal immigration," says the Chicago Tribune.

"The newest entrant into the party's presidential contest, actor-politician Fred Thompson, a former senator from Tennessee, skipped the debate, avoiding direct engagement with the other candidates but drawing needling from several of his rivals. 'Maybe we're up past his bedtime,' said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). 'I think he's done a pretty good job of playing my part on 'Law and Order.' I personally prefer the real thing,' said former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney for the city, referring to Thompson's television role as a New York City district attorney."

Meanwhile, it's pretty clear that Larry Craig (who no one defended at the debate) isn't following the Washington Scandal Script.

You get caught doing something bad, you apologize, you resign, and then you write a tell-all book, go on Oprah and make a second career rehashing the terrible thing you did and how mean everyone was to you. (Jim "Gay American" McGreevey and ex-wife Dina have both worked this circuit.)

Instead, Craig wants a do-over.

He wants to fight his own guilty plea and, possibly, wants to retract his own resignation. He says, in a voice-mail message obtained by Roll Call, that he's been "railroaded."

This is not how the scenario is supposed to play out. We all wrote our what-does-it-all-mean pieces last week.

Does the senator realize the second wave of coverage that would wash over him--with fresh deconstructions of bathroom-stall behavior--if he tries again to fight for his seat? And that he seems to have few allies, either in the GOP or the conservative punditocracy?

"On the criminal law front," says Josh Marshall, "what is there to fight about? Craig is like a senatorial Wile E. Coyote. He's fifteen feet out past the edge of the cliff on the criminal procedure front. The only reason he hasn't fallen yet is that he hasn't looked down.

"I've now spoken to a couple DC defense attorney friends who both say that a good defense attorney could have gotten the whole thing thrown out just on the basis of the interrogation. But as far I know, a guilty plea is virtually impossible to take back. Not impossible -- there's always an exception. But my sense is that to even have a shot at it you need some massive procedural flaw in what happened. Changing your mind or not being gay doesn't count."

At Americablog, Pam Spaulding wonders about the difference between David Vitter (of D.C. Madam fame) and Larry Craig: