Keith, Keith, Keith

I'M sure we've been over this before.

It's one thing, sorta, to call Giuliani on having voted for McGovern. He's allowed to change his mind over the course of thirty-five years, but he's required to explain it when he does. The problem with bringing it up this way--aside from the fact that precious few Giuliani supporters are watching you--is that the reply is just that simple. What Giuliani should be required to explain is his own health-care plan and his reversion to Campaign Libertarianism.

It's something else, though, when we decide there's some mid-size fun to be had when Fred Dumbo Thompson says "Soviet Union." There might be a comedy nugget in there but it wasn't worth strip-mining to get. "Soviet Union" was a slip; if Thompson ever becomes an actual threat to win the nomination, this Alzheimer's Candidate stuff might find some play. In the meantime the real joke wasn't that Fred can't be trusted to command a submarine, it's that the fair copy of his remarks is dumber than one of Adam Sandler's rejected scripts. Thompson didn't mean to say "Soviet Union" (unless he's crazy...like a weasel!), but he does mean to talk like he's Dean Acheson's aide-de-camp.

It'd be nice if once in a while the response to these sorts of things could be a little more substantive. The why of Thompson's Cold War stupidity is a lot more important than the Watch This Political Football Hit Him In The Crotch of it, and it's a richer vein, while you're at it.

And while we're at it, when does the Let's Get More Perspective From Ex-Warfloggers Dana Milbank and Jonathan Alter Who Are Now Ten Times Smarter Than Bush Era end, Mr. I Couldn't Say Anything About Imus While He Worked For MSNBC, Mr. Let's Talk To NBC's Tim Russert About His Brave Courtroom Appearance in the Libby Case? There's a hundred bloggers out there who are uncompromised, twice as intelligent, and not duty bound to flog the conventional wisdom, and you wouldn't have to ask them leading questions ("Doesn't this just show that the administration wasn't really serious about ending torture?") to cut through the faux-balance and the faux insights. Dumping Alberto "Gonzo" Gonzales is all well and good, but unless we get at the stupidity and cupidity that enabled this administration in the first place, having a lying psychopath or malaprop-prone halfwit in the office will only be half our problem.