I particularly enjoyed the “Embargoed Until Delivery” part. Because, seriously, who could possibly contain themselves?

A week ago, George Will advised Tim Pawlenty that now was the moment for him to make his move. On ABC’s This Week, Pawlenty did so. He got in the “let’s play chicken with the debt limit” car and headed it straight towards the cliff, joining the growing list of Tea-GOP presidential wannabes who should never be given a license to drive.

The news for Mitt Romney has been pretty good lately; he leads the Republican presidential field in the the latest Gallup poll of the race.

George Will tells us it’s time for Pawlenty to make his move. But Will doesn’t explain why American should want Tim Pawlenty.

Helpful advice for Republican presidential hopefuls on how to distinguish themselves between now and next year’s primaries.

The DNC is focused on the GM and Chrysler headlines, not so much the suppliers, where the bulk of the jobs are. More importantly, the Democrats as a whole don’t seem to be cataloging the many examples where down-ticket Republicans are claiming credit for government investments in new technology that are just now paying off in jobs.

The 2012 Republican primary is increasingly looking like a two-man race between TPaw and Willard. And you can be sure that — since neither of them in their previous political lives were known as Teabaggers — they’ll be extremely eager to out-crazy each other.

I have bad news for all of you election/schadenfreude junkies out there… like all good things, Newt Gingrich Humiliation Week is drawing to a close. Yes, there may be a few last sparks from whatever Sunday talkfest Newt is gracing with his presence this weekend, and he’ll continue trudging through the small towns of New Hampshire and other early primary/caucus states next week. Between the media’s gnat-like attention span and a presumed (if woefully late) improvement in message discipline by Gingrich and his press secretary, though, most of the fun probably has already been had.

The good news, however, is that starting Monday, it will be Tim Pawlenty‘s turn in the barrel…

Tonight in Greenville, South Carolina, five rivals for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination meet in the first debate of the campaign. I use the term “rivals” fairly loosely – I think the Matt Taibbi description of “Loony-ass Insurgents vs. Waffling Bores” applies a bit better. Most of the candidates with a legitimate shot at the nomination have decided to sit this one out. The debate consists of former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty; well-known frothy mixture Rick Santorum; guy who once ran a middling pizza chain Herman Cain; libertarian Rep. Ron Paul; and other libertarian, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson.

When the news broke last night that Osama bin Laden had been killed in an American special forces raid, some of the instant reaction on twitter and elsewhere was that President Obama just won his 2012 reelection contest. While we are almost assured to see a spike in Obama’s job approval numbers, the actual direct affect of this one event on an election a full 18 months from now should be modest.