LIGHTNING ROUND: NEXT SUNDAY IT'LL BE STROM THURMOND'S GHOST ON MEET THE PRESS.

• I have a few questions about this new RNC spot that intersperses Lyndon Johnson's infamous "Daisy" ad with footage of Barack Obama talking about closing Gitmo. First, just how many undecided voters are going to recognize footage from a political ad that ran only once 45 years ago? Aren't non-political junkies going to be confused as to why there's a little girl in grainy black-and-white footage with bad overdubbing? And what's the implication here? Is securing potential terrorists in maximum security facilities on U.S. soil somehow comparable to nuclear annihilation?
  
• Speaking of supermax prisons, The Washington Post indulges our infantile political culture by patiently pointing out that yes, these prisons are, for all intents and purposes, escape-proof, and that they already hold international terrorists who have yet to "radicalize" the rest of the inmates. Somehow, I doubt this will prevent Democrats in Congress from pissing their pants every time Republicans shriek, "evil terrorists in the heartland!"
• Outside of the (debatable) political advantage for Democrats, it really is incomprehensible that Newt Gingrich is an ubiquitous presence on the enduring Beltway media institutions. Then again, Liz Cheney has been deemed an irreplaceable, impartial analyst of her deranged father's national security delusions, so what are you going to do? Personally I'd like to see more Mitt Romney and his serious argument that unlike Barack Obama and other human beings, Dick Cheney never sleeps and therefore is always, personally, keeping an eye on our borders to make sure America is safe from Cobra Commander.
• Remainders: Arlen Specter keeps the pressure on the CIA; Chuck Schumer shows a little patriotism towards our penitentiary system; the poor will be the first sucked into the California fiscal black hole; Laura Rozen details the less-prominent, though no less significant members of the Obama foreign policy team; The RNC outraises the DNC in April; and Can the IRS Save America?

--Mori Dinauer