Earlier today, the LA Times reported that former New York City mayor “Rudy Giuliani appears to be pondering an end to his long pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination.”

In a meeting in the back of his chartered plane en route to St. Petersburg, Fla., a short while ago, the onetime, longtime GOP front-runner told a small group of reporters, including The Times’ Louise Roug: “The winner of Florida will win the nomination.”

Tonight on MSNBC, pundit Keith Olbermann revealed that after Giuliani made those comments, Giuliani’s staff distributed “signed Rudy Giuliani baseballs” to reporters– momentos of an abandoned campaign, perhaps?

Responding to President Bush’s assertion that “Al Qaeda is on the run in Iraq,” Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), in an interview with MSNBC, noted that given the international nature of terrorism, “[If I were Al Qaeda]…I would be moving towards Afghanistan and Pakistan. So when the president tries to look at Iraq separate from the region, he is not being honest about the difficulties that we face. And the only way we will be able to resolve this is with strong diplomacy.”

Indeed, terrorism is now on the rise in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Afghanistan, total violence increased by 27 percent from a year ago; the number of roadside bombs increased by 425 percent between 2004 and 2007 and suicide bombings soared from “three in 2004 to more than 130 in 2007.” Similarly, Pakistan is experiencing “growing insecurity in Pakistan’s tribal areas.”

Analyzing tonight’s State of the Union address, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams suggested that “Bush’s tears” (at the mention of “men and women fighting overseas” during the speech) refocused the nation on the war on terror and the challenges of a post-9/11 world.

Tonight, in a response to Governor Mitt Romney’s assertion that he considered a VP slot on the Democratic ticket in 2004, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) assured MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews that he quickly rejected the offer. But in a July 7, 2004 interview on Fox News Radio’s The Tony Snow Show, McCain claimed that Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) never offered him the slot.

SNOW: Right. But, so- I want to just lay to rest once and for all: never approached you, never hinted that he wanted to talk to you about being vice president. All that kind of stuff was made up.

McCAIN: Well, I cannot attest to that. All I can tell you is my conversations with him were private conversations, but he never offered it.

During his coverage of President Bush’s State of the Union address MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews suggested that Bush’s speech would help presidential contender Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). “I tell you, tonight was a John McCain speech, in many ways,” Matthews said, citing the president’s emphasis on earmark reform and ’success’ in Iraq.

UPDATE: In an interview with McCain, Matthews suggested that McCain is the only candidate who supports earmark reform and an an aggressive war on terror.

“The President gave your speech tonight…he talked about earmarks….terrorism…it was your speech, Senator.“

During tonight’s State of the Union address, President Bush falsely suggested that the Iraq war has made America safer.

My fellow Americans: We will not rest either. We will not rest until this enemy has been defeated. We must do the difficult work today, so that years from now people will look back and say that this generation rose to the moment, prevailed in a tough fight, and left behind a more hopeful region and a safer America.

In reality, “the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.” According to the National Intelligence Estimate:

An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.

The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official.

During his last State of the Union address tonight, President Bush proclaimed that he trusts the choices of the Iraqi people.

We trust that people, when given the chance, will choose a future of freedom and peace. In the last seven years, we have witnessed stirring moments in the history of liberty and these images of liberty have inspired us…In the long run, men and women who are free to determine their own destinies will reject terror and refuse to live in tyranny. That is why the terrorists are fighting to deny this choice to people in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Palestinian Territories

But a majority of the Iraqi people have chosen to oppose a prolonged U.S. military presence in Iraq. According to the latest opinion polls, a majority of Iraqis have little confidence in American and coalition forces and 79 percent oppose the presence of coalition forces in Iraq.

While President Bush urged Congress to limit spending on entitlement programs, he made no mention of the taxing cost of the Iraq war on the economy. While prewar estimates predicted that the Iraq war would cost $50-60 billion, according to the National Priorities Project, puts the current price tag at $489.6 billion dollars; when indirect costs are considered, some economists estimate that the war has cost “more than $2 trillion.” In fact, Americans spend:

- $200,000 a minute on the war.

- $275,000,000 per day

- $200 billion a year.

- $4,100 per household

More spending is on the way. According to the AP, the “White House will ask Congress next week for another $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

In tonight’s State of the Union address, President Bush misrepresented the housing crisis in New Orleans.

Tonight the armies of compassion continue the march to a new day in the Gulf Coast. America honors the strength and resilience of the people of this region. We reaffirm our pledge to help them build stronger and better than before.

Hurricane Katrina destroyed “nearly 41,000 inexpensive rentals.” Since then, the city of New Orleans began demolishing “4,500 units of public housing, making way for mixed-income neighborhoods with only 800 units of public housing, an 82% reduction in size.”

The city is facing an acute housing shortage. Rents have almost doubled since before the storm. But HUD, the federal housing authority, is pressing ahead with the demolition. 50% of families who want to but are unable to return to New Orleans make less than $20,000 a year.

In his State of the Union address President Bush said that “we must trust in the skill of our scientists and engineers.”

To keep America competitive into the future, we must trust in the skill of our scientists and engineers and empower them to pursue the breakthroughs of tomorrow.

But as ThinkProgress has pointed out, the Bush administration has regularly undermined independent scientific research, shaping government science around administration ideology. According to the government’s top global warming researcher, James Hansen, who has previously revealed “the government’s efforts to muzzle him from speaking out about climate change,” the White House Office of Management and Budget censors “all government scientists…to make sure that it’s consistent with the President’s budget.”

Do you know that before a government scientist testifies to Congress his/her testimony is typically reviewed and edited by the White House Office of Management and Budget? When I asked for a justification, I was told that a government scientist’s testimony “needs to be consistent with the President’s budget”.