The Ron Paul campaign has faced its first test in Iowa. Score: B-minus. The hope was that he could break out with 15 percent, but 10 percent ain’t bad. What’s good—and what saves him from getting a C—is that he beat Benito Giuliani. Ah, sweet revenge! Rudy the Ranter is unraveling rather rapidly, and this is really a slap in the face for the bully of the GOP pack, who thought he could use Paul as his personal punching bag: how appropriate that he should come in last in Iowa, pulverized by Paul.

And the media noticed. Here‘s the Los Angeles Times:

“The consensus at the time was that Giuliani parked it. As MSNBC’s online political note put it at the time, Giuliani may want to “hire out Paul for the campaign trail—he could be the Washington Generals to Rudy’s Globetrotters” (i.e., the patsy willing to get beaten in every game).

“That was then, this is now. In Iowa, Paul, 10%; Giuliani, 4%.”

This is especially gratifying given the Fox News Network’s banning of Paul from the “forum” they’re co-sponsoring with the New Hampshire GOP: of course, they don’t say it’s a banning. They claim that Paul isn’t polling high enough to be included—but how can they maintain this position in light of the shellacking Rudy took in Iowa? By this standard, Rudy’s the one who ought to be excluded. In the Bizarro World of Fox News, however, logic has nothing to do with it.