Republicans face a very bad situation come November, says the radically astute Ann Coulter:

The bright side of the Florida debacle is that I no longer fear Hillary Clinton. (I mean in terms of her becoming president – on a personal level, she’s still a little creepy.) I’d rather deal with President Hillary than with President McCain. With Hillary, we’ll get the same ruinous liberal policies with none of the responsibility.

Thing is, Pres. McCain comes up with leftist stuff, Repubs will back him up, at least at first and at least most, says C.  She mocks him in trademark style:

McCain’s neurotic boast that he is the only Republican who supported the surge is beginning to sound as insane as Bill Clinton’s claim to being the “first black president” – although less insulting to blacks. As with the Clintons, you find yourself looking up such tedious facts as this, which ran a week after Bush announced the surge:

“On the morning of Bush’s address, Romney endorsed a troop surge.” – The National Journal, Jan. 13, 2007

That’s her view of McCain as liar.  The bad situation would find its conclusion in the four years following next January, assuming the nation picks McCain:

At least under President Hillary, Republicans in Congress would know that they’re supposed to fight back. When President McCain proposes the same ideas – tax hikes, liberal judges and Social Security for illegals – Republicans in Congress will support “our” president – just as they supported, if only briefly, Bush’s great ideas on amnesty and Harriet Miers.

At least under H., she argues, Repubs would know the enemy and go after her hammer and tong, tooth and nail — maybe, say I: they would still be looking over their shoulders at the NYTimes and its lemming-like cabal. 

However, and here she concludes rather weakly, pragmatism will out —  and isn’t that the heck of it?  I accept the universe, said the lady sitting next to Winston Churchill at dinner, to which the great man replied, By God, you’d better.

Meanwhile, the universe is ours to mold, more or less, as the beat and debate goes on.  The dice are not yet cast, our Rubicon not yet crossed, and the irksome realities surrounding and embodying McCain are not yet to be downplayed.

Update: More on McCain the fibber from Robert Novak.  Buzz was McC dissed Alito as too conservative, McC remembered saying no such thing.  But:

In fact, multiple sources confirm his negative comments about Alito nine months ago.

Problem is, says Novak,

McCain, as the ‘straight talk’ candidate, says things off the cuff that he sometimes cannot remember exactly.

Yes.  Thing is, to keep the heat on him, getting him out and up front with support for the likes of Alito and tax-cutting, says N.

More update:  Oh my, what about this shot at McCain the Impulsive, from PowerLine’s Paul Mirengoff?

McCain’s tendency to make snap judgments based on prejudice rather than information, and his hostility to information that doesn’t conform to his prejudices, is perhaps the most frightening aspect of candidacy. It is also the most stark difference between McCain and Romney, outstripping any substantive disagreements in my view.

For instance,

He opposes drilling in ANWR because, in his words, the area is “pristine” (which in this case means barren) and he “wouldn’t drill in the Grand Canyon.” Has any candidate ever presented a less serious analysis of an important policy question?

He opposes waterboarding in part because “torture doesn’t work.” Maybe the things the North Vietnamese did to him at the Hanoi Hilton didn’t work, but we know from eye-witness accounts that waterboarding worked. When I asked McCain about this, he essentially accused the CIA of lying.

Hmmm.

More update: Sounding the death knell for the Romney campaign in the WSJ Political Diary, WSJ man Daniel Henninger cited his data-dumping in debate and on stump as major problem:

As Mike Huckabee might put it, the bane of the Romney candidacy was Bain & Company. Bain is the consulting firm where by his own admission Mr. Romney learned how to think about the world — through the eyes of a management consultant. As any CEO who has ever hired one of these firms will tell you, they are fascinating guys to talk to but you wouldn’t want them actually running your company.

Or as my friend Charlie Herman used to tell me, they borrow your watch to tell you what time it is, then keep the watch.