The first shot in a volley that’ll last the next six months, fired appropriately enough on Stephanopoulos’s show. I can’t decide if it’s a good or bad idea to frame this, as he does, as a defense of Tom Coburn’s honor. It makes his motive in mentioning it seem selfless and noble — why, he’s only standing up for an esteemed friend and colleague — but it also moves the discussion slightly away from why Obama’s gladhanding terrorists and onto the subject of why Obama’s being so mean to TC. Whatever keeps it in front of the public, I guess.

Here’s Team Barry’s feeble response. Exit question recycled from my first post about Ayers in February: If McCain turned up at a fundraiser hosted by a “rehabilitated” abortion-clinic bomber, you think the DNC or Barack Obama or the New York Times or Josh Marshall or Glenn Greenwald would consider it “substantive” enough to mention?

Update: I don’t know where Gingrich gets these crazy ideas of his.