When John McCain gave his stupid floor speech at the Senate trashing the Tea Party today, one of the few things he said which had a little value to them was his critique of Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell as not quite Senate quality Republican nominees.

Actually, McCain was quoting a Wall Street Journal piece when he said that.

Either way, it’s a valid statement that Christine O’Donnell wasn’t quite qualified to be a U.S. Senator. By McCain’s standard she’d have to spend a few years getting tortured by communists someplace other than Delaware in order for that to be the case.

Unfortunately for McCain, the failed 2010 Delaware GOP Senate nominee was paying attention to what he said and was ready with a response. And as is fairly typical, he finds himself on the short end of the debate – as O’Donnell’s retort was devastating.

“…. I think that it is inappropriate to insult the judgment of the majority of Republicans in Nevada and Delaware and that the implication that nominating RINOs somehow means we win was irrefutably disproven by McCain’s own presidential candidacy debacle. After that nightmare, McCain had to veer right so fast he almost got whiplash from all his flip-flopping just to keep his Senate seat. It doesn’t help him to attack those conservatives and Tea Partiers who graciously gave him another chance to keep his job….”

Ouch.

O’Donnell has a book coming out soon, and she’s doing a great public service by attempting to get the left-wing attack dog outfit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington stripped of their tax-exempt status. Which probably means that even though she’s by no means an elite political force in America she’s currently doing more to advance the conservative movement than McCain.

And that response showed far more wit and perspective than McCain has exhibited in 30-something years of political prominence.

Maybe there’s hope for O’Donnell yet. By comparison to McCain, though, almost anybody can look good.

UPDATE: Sharron Angle won’t be outdone, either.

Angle has now released a response, which, among much else, reminds McCain that in the end the Hobbits actually won the day and saved the world. The former Nevada GOP senate nominee called herself a “TEA Party Hobbit.” This could be the start of a new branding movement among Tea Partiers:

“One man in Washington, who chose Sarah Palin to be his VP running-mate and came to Nevada to campaign for me last year in the Senate race against Harry Reid, is now promoting attacks against TEA Party activists, ordinary American citizens, and fiscally conservative members of congress – all of whom are adamantly opposed to continuing the deficit-spending strategies proposed by some congressional members and the President.

“Ironically, this man campaigned for TEA Party support in his last re-election, but now throws Christine O’Donnell and I into the harbor with Sarah Palin. As in the fable, it is the hobbits who are the heroes and save the land. This Lord of the TARP actually ought to read to the end of the story and join forces with the TEA Party, not criticize it.

It is regrettable that a man seeking dialogue, action and cooperation for votes on the floor of the United States Senate has only one strategy to achieve that effort: name-calling. Nice.

“It is similarly unfortunate that Senator McCain brings no new ideas to the Senate floor. In fact, so unoriginal is Senator McCain’s effort that he is reduced to borrowing words from an editorial – rather than bringing anything constructive to this debate.

“While Senator McCain advocates raising the debt ceiling as a solution – world markets and credit rating industries propose to down-grade our credit worthiness, impacting the value of the U.S. dollar and the state of our economy because of our world-famous spending problem.

“Senator McCain can continue on with his borrowed soliloquies, just as he can continue to vote to raise our nation’s debt ceiling – all in an effort to spend money that we don’t have, to fund programs and policies that don’t work, with a currency that continues to lose its value.

“Meanwhile, we look forward to meeting members of Congress and the President at the polls in 2012… when ‘We the People’ choose the names we call to serve us in Washington – and we will keep in mind those who supported increasing our nation’s mountain of debt, what could be called their very own Mount Doom.”