Treat yourself to Peggy Noonan's fierce takedown of the hopefuls:
John McCain seems liberated by loss. Once he was the front-runner, then he was over. Unburdened by the pressure to do well, he has rediscovered the pleasures of the trail. The other day when a student was impertinent, he pleasantly responded, "Thanks for the question, you little jerk." It reminded me of the time Mayor Rudy Giuliani told an insistent radio caller who pressed for the legalization of ferrets that he probably cared about the issue because he was insane.
Mitt Romney is--well, he continues to seem like someone who's stepped from the shower and been handed a dress shirt by his manservant George.
For Fred Thompson, spurning the debate and announcing on Leno was rude and shrewd. He loped on like a long, tall, folksy fella and got a good burst of applause from the audience when he said he was running. The Web video was fine, the 60-second commercial unveiled Wednesday too self-consciously presidential. A young journalist brutally remarked to me of the makeup and lighting, "He looks like a skull on a Disney pirate ride."