Morris says all these attacks and assaults on the GOP candidates are actually helpful, as painful as this process is. Why? Because by the time whoever survives the process makes it through to the Republican convention, all the stuff POLITICO and the Washington Post can dig up on them will be old news.

He says Perry can’t come back because he thinks Perry’s too dumb. But he thinks Bachmann can come back. He’s wrong there; Perry’s chances to come back are infinitely greater than Bachmann’s are.

But it’s an interesting point that people like Gingrich and Cain and maybe Perry as well have had every bullet fired at them possible already, and if the public decides a Gingrich or a Cain or a Perry are worthy of support – and the anti-Romney vote consolidates around one of them – that candidate will be seasoned and tough.

Morris leaves out a true analysis of Romney, though. Nobody’s attacking Romney. The mainstream media wants him to be the GOP nominee, even if GOP voters don’t. But if Romney wins, you can bet they’ll round on him in a heartbeat – just like they rounded on McCain four years ago. Romney will be Mr. Flip-Flop, and he’ll get killed on Romneycare and abortion and gun control and so forth. The media won’t try to paint him as a right-wing nut or a dunce or any of that; instead, they’ll make him the silver-spoon-in-his-mouth Wall Street guy who has no principles, and that will so dispirit the Republican base that Romney will lose the election on turnout.

Or so goes the theory.

Anyway, here’s Morris…