Not only are major papers running headlines about the site becoming a laughingstock, even respected liberals are admitting that they would have flipped out had Bush tried something similar. Place your bets: How much longer can the PR beating go on before someone throws in the towel? Ace thinks it’ll be gone — or at least substantially overhauled to rid it of the “snazzy Gestapo color scheme” — by 6 p.m. ET. I’m thinking they’re going to stick with it for the long haul for the reason MKH gives here:

Design regression from Fight the Smears to #AttackWatch is metaphor for Obama 08 vs. 12. Same product, subtract style, sprinkle desperation.

Compare and contrast. We’re more than a year away from election day and it’s already axiomatic that this will be the nastiest campaign in recent memory — and the worse the economy is, the nastier it’ll be on the White House’s end. Why pretend otherwise by adding rainbows and unicorns to AttackWatch.com now? They should keep the site as is and embrace the new scorched-earth vision of “Hope” and “Change.” Or better yet, embellish the motif. How about a grainy photo of Joe Biden in a balaclava to add “atmosphere”?

My prediction is that they’ll ride it out and leave the site unaltered. Right or wrong? While you mull, here’s Cuffy Meigs’s rendering of what a newly redesigned AW might look like.

Update: Via RCP, the inevitable Fox News debate.