It occurs to me that a lot of the semi-baffled discussion of how Rudy Giuliani’s been able to maintain his lead in national GOP primary polls has a tendency to implicitly overstate Rudy’s actual level of support. His lead is real, and since the McCain Collapse has been consistently pretty large, but in absolute terms he’s not a very popular choice for Republicans — only able to gain support from more than a third of Republicans for a brief and transient moment. Even though Giuliani’s strong showing has surprised a lot of people, I don’t think anyone would have been especially shocked two or seven years ago by the contention that 25 percent or so of Republicans aren’t especially committed to the abortion issue. Rudy’s lead is perfectly consistent with only a tiny number of actual “values voters” actually deciding that perpetual war is more important to them than banning abortion of persecuting gays and lesbians.

Meanwhile, the same considerations highlight the continued underlying weakness of Giuliani’s candidacy. The graph seems to suggest that there’s a reasonably firm ceiling on Giuliani’s potential level of support. Ordinarily, what you’d expect to see happen is for various other contenders to drop out of the race as the primary season continues eventually leading to the emergence of an Anti-Rudy who picks up something like the combined McCain-Romney-Thompson-Huckabee vote in the current national polls (Ron Paul’s clearly running a protest campaign and can be expected to stay in ’till the end) and wins the race. There’s a question as to whether quirks of the process this year and the compressed schedule can prevent that from happening, but the basic reality is still that Giuliani’s lead has more to do with the large number of flawed rivals in the field than with any overwhelming strength on his part.

At the 2007 American Magazine Conference over the weekend, former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was asked if President Bush thinks “the press are fair?” “I don’t know… he’s not the type to dis the press,” replied Snow. Below — President Bush seen carrying Bernard Goldberg’s anti-media screed “Bias,” which Bill Press said at the time was “a message to the media” by Bush:

In his recent Bush bio, “The Evangelical President,” the Washington Examiner’s Bill Sammon claims “that Bush has three enemies: foreign adversaries, the Democrat Congress and the mainstream media.

Earlier today, ThinkProgress noted that former FEMA director of external affairs John “Pat” Philbin had resigned his position, only to be rewarded with a promotion. Today, Philbin was set to become the director of public affairs for Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell. But the DNI’s office has since backed away from its offer, putting out a statement this afternoon that reads:

We can confirm that Mr. Philbin is not, nor is he scheduled to be, the director of public affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

CNN reported that, as of this morning, the DNI’s office had said Philbin’s appointment was still going forward. Now, the DNI’s office has reconsidered in the wake of increasing anger about the hiring. Watch it:

CNN today announced that the eight major GOP presidential candidates have agreed to participate in its YouTube debate on Nov. 28. Earlier, Mitt Romney mocked the democratic nature of the forum, stating, “I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman,” referring to a citizen dressed as a snowman who submitted a question about global warming in the July Democratic debate.

Digg It!

Whatever happened the to FEMA official who organized the Potemkin press conference and tried to trick journalists into thinking they were watching a real one? Well, he’s been fired of course. But with a catch: his next job will be as head of public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

UPDATE: Apparently, the DNI may be getting cold feet.