From last night’s Special Report with Brit Hume:

—On Senator Warner and the NIE—

FRED BARNES: But this report, the National Intelligence Report, I thought there was a lot more good news than bad news. It said, basically, the surge is working, and said if it is kept up it will increase and improve Iraq’s security over the next 6 to 12 months.
It said the Iraqi security forces are actually doing adequately, and in some cases better than that. And it said, I think importantly, in the next to last paragraph, it said the return to the policy prior to the surge, prior to the counterinsurgency strategy of General Petraeus, the return to that would be to throw away all of the gains that have been made. . . .
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Warner is exactly in the wrong if he threatens a troop withdrawal. Maliki yesterday said in response to Levin’s suggestion that the Iraqi parliament vote him out of office, he said: “In Syria,” he said, “we have friends in the region.”
This is a threat that if America withdraws, he may lean on Syria and Iran. And that is not what we want. So a withdrawal or a threat of withdrawal is going to have the opposite effect.
I think Maliki is hopeless. Our only way of achieving a national unity government which will be a friend of ours in the region is to have a change in the government, is to have a different coalition. Or, if necessary, have new elections.

—On Giuliani—

KRAUTHAMMER: But what is really interesting, I think, is the Giuliani effect. This is a guy who defies gravity. Everybody expected six months ago that, yes, he was high in the numbers because people associate him with 9/11. But when Republicans discover how socially liberal he is, his numbers will plummet. And they have not.
And people, I think, are aware of his positions on abortion, et cetera, and I think that the answer is that Republicans are grown up, and they understand that a president is not going to have a revolution in social affairs. Reagan did not on abortion. It is not going to happen.
And what is important is the war on terror. Democrats are not reliable. Giuliani is a guy who in a Democratic year, which is going to be in 2008, could win. After all, he is a guy who won reelection twice in Sodom and Gomorrah.