I love when this happens. It's a reminder that the political prattle that spews forth from group-think media stars without end and which consumes our political dialogue for a full year is based on absolutely nothing. Also, most predictive "analysis" from the media stars' cousins, the cogs in the right-wing noise machine, is merely self-absorbed wishful thinking masquerading as objective knowledge:

Joe Klein, Time, December 31, 2007:

Huckabust

Des Moines

Just when you think the Republican presidential race can't get weirder...Mike Huckabee holds a press conference here to announce that he'd just made a last minute decision not to air a negative TV ad slamming Romney.

That sound you hear rumbling out of Des Moines appears to be a monumental implosion.

Mike Allen, The Politico, January 1, 2008:

The national political press corps, which has been wishy-washy and all over the map all cycle had a harmonic convergence yesterday on a single point: Huckabee lost it at his news conference yesterday. "It" being both his stature and, perhaps, the first nominating contest. As pointed out by a colleague, as Huckabee falls back from the number above (which history suggests is more likely than not), the pundits and stories are going to blame it on what Slate's John Dickerson immediately called "Huckabee's Nutty Flip-Flop."

Reporters are wondering aloud if it was "his Howard Dean moment."

Dean Barnett, The Weekly Standard, December 24, 2007:

I COME NOT TO bury Mike Huckabee. Mike Huckabee has buried himself. Over the next week, the Republican party in Iowa and elsewhere will decide that Huckabee may be a swell fellow, but he's not of presidential timbre. I predict this decision will be made en masse. Huckabee's support will likely crater in Iowa.

But here's the fun part--no one will see it coming. . . . If Huckabee declines to a distant second or perhaps even third place as I am now fearlessly predicting he will, it will catch the voting public by surprise.

Jonathan Martin, The Politico, December 31, 2007:

Huckabee has found himself under the unforgiving glare of the front-runner’s spotlight, and his hopes to win here have now become severely threatened by it. . . .

Huckabee's slide can be explained by a series of inter-related factors. His rise came right as the media began to closely cover the campaign, he and his undermanned campaign organization have been ill-prepared to push back against broadsides from both the media and Romney, and his positions and rhetoric have drawn the enmity of a constellation of groups within the conservative establishment.

Hugh Hewitt, December 28, 2007:

Romney is fighting a two-front political war. And he is winning.

Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, December 20, 2007:

THAT DOESN'T SEEM SMART: Huckabee insider disses Rush Limbaugh. . . . [December 21]: LIMBAUGH GOES AFTER HUCKABEE: I told you attacking him was a bad idea.

Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review, December 21, 2007:

Bye-Bye, Mike [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

This Huckabee insider should get out of Little Rock or whatever rock he lives under that misses what over 20 million Americans get daily.

Michelle Malkin, December 20, 2007:

I believe this Rush-bashing incident may turn out to be Huckabee’s Howard Dean scream moment.

Like Glenn Reynolds said: "Bad idea."

Also: Benazir Bhutto's assassination Changed Everything and helps Giuliani and Clinton. The GOP field is a two-man race between Romney and Giuliani. And Hillary Clinton has a massive 20-point lead and can't be defeated, except by Condoleezza Rice. One knows much more by ignoring and tuning all of this out. But for a full year, our mainstream political dialogue is filled with all of this -- in every leading political magazine and news show -- at the expense of anything that is actually real.