Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Thomas Friedman: Ah! Another chance to give the candidates advice about Iraq, a topic I have been proven wrong about time and time again. Good, because I have not yet completed the transition to writing mostly about energy. Give me another six months.

Maureen Dowd: Look, we know Obama's more competent and a hell of a lot brighter than McCain. But it's not that we in the press want Obama to be obsequious. We just want him beholden. And he'd better not get ahead of himself. We made him and we can break him.

Rich Lowry & Ramesh Ponnuru: Look, we all know McCain sucks as a candidate. He's awful. But if he attacks like Hillary did, he at least won't embarrass us. And at this point, since he doesn't really have a chance, it's all about us. Well, that's not true. We're conservatives. It's always about us. It sure as hell isn't about you.

Michael Gerson: Look, I know I can be a jerk at times. But this HIV/AIDS stuff is important, so forgive me for touting one of the very few things the President did right. I have been pushing for this for some time, and I am involved in the bipartisan ONE campaign, just like many of you are.

Okay, strike that. Let me be a jerk and make it about Cindy McCain so you don't make the mistake of actually getting the point of the work we do.

Ruth Marcus: Let me take a completely inappropriate historical analogy, apply it to Iraq, and learn the wrong lessons. This is, after all, the Washington Post. It's what we do.

Dick Morris: Speaking of always getting it wrong, let me lay out the case for why Mitt Romney will be McCain's VP. The reason I'm confident he will be? I think it would be a mistake.

Robert Samuelson: C'mon. We haven't been hit by a giant asteroid, and dinosaurs show no real evidence (yet) of making a comeback. Cheer up. It's only money. And more importantly to me, it's only your money.

Richard Holbrooke: Seriously, folks. The word gets thrown around too much, but Radovan Karadzic is evil. But as trite as it sounds, and even against evil, process and the Rule of Law work.