Look, we can all pretty much forgive Rick Perry at this point for his bizarre speech in New Hampshire over a week ago, if for no other reason than it was the first bit of comic relief we’ve seen on the campaign trail in quite a while. Bob Schieffer described Perry’s speech as “bizarre,” which is now in the running for Understatement of the Year™.

Ready for a trip down Memory Lane? Face the Nation held an interestingly anachronistic debate today on the Obama jobs program between former RNC chair Ed Gillespie and former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe, where the two quarreled over the optics of President Obama’s vacation and Congress’ obstinacy in passing a jobs bill. Host Norah O’Donnell led the discussion, wherein the two agreed the time for talk was over, but, predictably, differed on who exactly was doing the useless talking.

Other than Juan Williams the storyline making the most headlines this week is the enormous sums of anonymous money being funneled into this year’s midterm campaigns. As former RNC head Ed Gillespie reminded everyone on This Week this morning, this is now “the law of the land.” However is it damaging our electoral process? Nope! Says George Will.

Love her or hate her, Sarah Palin has influence. If you doubt this, look no further than former Bush adviser Ed Gillespie‘s appearance on CBS News’ Face the Nation today. In responding to charges that he’s helping to “steal our democracy,” Gillespie resurrected the former Alaska governor’s most infamous malapropism, stating that several newspapers had “refudiated” the claim. Was it a mistake, or the start of a campaign to vindicate Palin by rewriting linguistic history? You be the judge. (h/t Think Progress)

The DNC has released a new attack ad that one might describe as being almost Rovian. The ad accuses Karl Rove and former RNC head Ed Gillespie (Rachel Maddow thinks he’s still running the RNC) of “stealing our democracy.”

Said Rachel Maddow last night: “In the last 24hrs, remarkably, the Republican party decided the party is going to adopt the single craziest position that candidate has taken in what has been a thoroughly crazy campaign.” You got it! Christine O’Donnell’s secret security clearance that enabled her to obtain classified information about China’s impending takeover of America. In the last few days neither Michael Steele nor Ed Gillespie would deny that O’Donnell could possibly have obtained this info.

Amongst the proposed Cordoba House’s purposes is to promote interfaith dialogue and to improve public understanding of Islam. I can forgive the ignorance of the crowd that is trying to stop the construction of the center. What I can’t forgive is the willfulness of the ignorance. The strange lack of interest in learning about Islam shows in every statement the band of loudmouth rabble-rousers make. Imagine if a group of Quakers tried to build a meeting house near a Muslim shrine. You could be sure that they’d be branded as Christian missionaries out to destroy Islam by many. The very same people that are now opposing the Cordoba House in New York would be yelping about the breathtaking ignorance of “The Muslims” and railing about such anti-Christian bigotry.

On more than one occasion we have pondered what would happen if George W. Bush had made some of the same decisions that President Barack Obama has lately been making. The different ways that the two presidents are received by the media (and by extension, the public) has been particularly glaring during the recent White House Vs. Fox debacle. But should Obama really be held to the same low standards?