Everybody's giving Paul O'Neill a hard time now for partly backing down on some of his accusations against the president.

But this misses the point entirely. Look what an improvement this is! John DiIulio barely made it 24 hours after the horsehead showed up in his bed before he was telling the world he "sincerely apologizes and is deeply remorseful."

The O'Neill story's been out there for like a week and it's two days since the 60 Minutes interview and even now he's not taking it all back! I think what we've got here is a little rope-a-dope. O'Neill needs to give them a little but it's not yet a full Kamenev moment. More like Bukharin? I'll have to go back and review the testimony.