John McCain, seeking to redirect the conversation in Florida away from the economy, about which he knows nothing and has little to say, back to his perceived strength of national security decides to tell a whopper about Mitt Romney’s record. I have no particular desire to defend Romney, who’s a liar and a buffoon himself, but one would hope that McCain’s affection for such tactics might enter the media consciousness about what kind of “straight talker” he is. On that note, good for Jeffrey Toobin.

“Clinton says insurgency is failing”, Associated Press, February 19, 2005:

As 55 people died in Iraq on Saturday, the holiest day on the Shiite Muslim religious calendar, Sen. Hillary Clinton said that much of Iraq was “functioning quite well” and that the rash of suicide attacks was a sign that the insurgency was failing.

I’ll just observe that I don’t think that take on things has been borne out by the subsequent years.