The Decider has decided

New! Improved! Ultra Media Hubris(TM):

Reading this morning's analysis on line, I'm a little shocked by the number of people writing about the GOP race who think that "It's still competitive, it will go on a long time, they're really going to slug it out. ..." I think, to the contrary, that absent any dramatic developments this week, McCain is likely to put it away next Tuesday.

Thus spake Bill Kristol, the Only Republican Who Matters. (Via Memeorandum.)

You little microbes over there -- you voter people in, er, Oklahoma or Missouri or whatever -- nobody cares about your opinions of this so-called "primary" thing. Certainly, your opinions are entirely irrelevant to the calculations of Mr. Kristol, and your votes don't matter at all.

He Reports, He Decides.

C'mon, somebody, jump in here and help me out. Ace? Jeff? Rusty? Allah? Marty? You guys just going to roll over passively and let Kristol run this kind of oligarchic Murdoch/NYTimes self-fulfilling prophecy game?

I'm picturing Kristol on the air chatting with O'Reilly:

"Yes, that's right, Bill. Broad, sunlit uplands for Fightin' John McCain; the abyss of a new Dark Age for everyone else. The polls clearly indicate ...."

Here's the weird thing: I'm not sure that Kristol even likes John McCain or thinks he can win in November. (Although, if I correctly recall Kristol's enthusiasm for the Triumphant Dole Juggernaut of '96, Kristol could be afflicted by an obsession with geriatric war heroes.)

Maybe Romney let his Weekly Standard subscription lapse or something. This unexpected boomlet of GOP establishment zeal to nominate the old, grumpy, bald candidate -- and not the tall, handsome multi-millionaire -- just doesn't make sense.

Objectively, that is.

Hugh? C'mon, Hugh, I got nothing here.