I've never paid much attention to Elizabeth Dole, even with her role as NRSC Chair and my penchant for electoral politics. But having just watched her appearance on Meet The Press I have to ask, has she always been this way? This verbally pugnacious, desperately stubborn megaphone of a woman behaving at best as the diplomatic equivalent of a child firmly cupping hands over ears and loudly chanting `I can't hear you' over and over and over again.

I was cringing just watching her, having that sort of embarrassment you sometimes feel for people on the TV who have absolutely nothing to do with your real life. But her Mehlman-like filibustering was a little surprising to me, going well beyond staying on message all the way into simply talking loudly over her opponent's criticism. The lede from the show was Elizabeth Dole's comment that Democrats seem content to lose in Iraq, but it was her wing nut diatribe that followed, purpose built to drown out Rham Emanuel's attempt to respond to her outrageous comment, which she carried all the way to commercial break to the obvious frustration of even the nearly unflappable Russert that really impressed me.

Nora O'Donnell just interviewed the South Carolina Senators and there were a few notable comments. In response to the clearly unwelcome question about the now disgraced Pastor Haggard, DeMint said, "The one thing about the Republican Party, when we find them, we get rid of them. And that makes us a little different from the other party." Will other Republicans, including Marilyn Musgrave, agree with him and repudiate Haggard before the election?

Graham's response to the same question was just bizarre. After saying, "People fail in their personal lives," he went on to say, "The Mark Foley scandal was about Mark Foley, I don't believe any Republican leader allowed him to engage in behavior harmful to children on purpose. Iraq, Joe Lieberman is going to win even though he may be different than most people in Connecticut on Iraq because they think he's a good, decent person who's voting his conscience." I'll bet Joe is penning his thank you note to Graham right now.

The polls which have shown a tightening in recent days cause me little concern, but while I'm dubious that Rick Santorum is experiencing anything other than moving from terrible to very bad, the race in Montana now has me on the edge of my seat.