NRO'S LOWRY: MITT ON FIRE; MCCAIN ACTING CLINTONIAN, (OUCH)

LOWRY: Romney seems to be shifting into high-gear in terms of his message. He firmly rebutted McCain’s charge on the surge, hit him for being in Washington for 25 years, and pounded away on the economic issue:

BLITZER: What is the biggest difference between you and John McCain when it comes to the economy? A lot of fear, right now, of recession, people are hurting. What is the biggest difference between your strategy and his?

ROMNEY: Well, the list is very long. The last time we had a recession in the Bush years, President Bush recognized the best thing you can do is lower taxes and put forward a tax bill. And John McCain was one of only two Republicans to vote against it, and said he would go back and vote against it again if he could. He does not understand the first lesson of Reaganomics, which is, you cut taxes to grow the economy. And then secondly, right now, one of the things I find extraordinary is he pushes this bill known as McCain-Lieberman. It is a — effectively a tax on all energy in this country. He would raise gasoline prices by about 50 cents a gallon, and that is according to the Energy Information Agency. He would raise electric rates by some 20 percent, put a huge burden on us. And it basically would slow down our economy without helping the environment at all, because major users of energy would take their production to countries like China that wouldn't sign the deal. It is basically saying, the cost of global warming would all be borne by American rate-payers and consumers. He just doesn't understand how the economy works...

MORE LOWRY: McCain's Dishonest Attack

As I've said before, McCain deserves a large part of the credit for the surge—he pushed to have it implemented both in his public advocacy and his behind-the-scenes lobbying of the Bush administration, and he has been its foremost defender. Romney wasn't as enthusiastic about it and in his body language, if nothing else seemed ready to distance himself from it if it failed. This is a perfectly legitimate issue for McCain to raise, and he has, by saying things like Romney was "looking at his shoes" while he was putting it all on the line for the surge.

But that doesn't justify the rank dishonesty of his attack on Romney over the weekend. It's so shamelessly unfair, it's the kind of thing you'd expect of Bill Clinton attacking Barack Obama.

OUCH.

• THIS ATTACK BY MCCAIN ON MITT WAS DONE IN DESPERATION.
• AND IT BACKFIRED.
• IT ALSO PROVES THAT HE HASNLT THE TEMPERAMENT TO BE POTUS.

MITT DOES.