Goofus and Gallant in New Hampshire

In the heat of the home stretch of a primary contest, things can get intense. The media hustles to get the latest change-laced quotes, the politicians have tight schedules, and nobody has slept for days. Times like this can test everybody’s mettle, and one politician in New Hampshire came away a hero, while a pundit leaves the Granite State looking like a giant tool.

Playing the role of Goofus this weekend was FOX News talking head Bill O’Reilly, who got into an altercation with a Barack Obama staffer at an event on Saturday. Some of the YouTube footage has been taken down (here’s a link that worked for us), but several online reports say that 6-foot-8 staffer Marvin Nicholson was following the senator after an event when O’Reilly grabbed him and tried to push him out of the way.

O’Reilly claims that he “gently removed” Nicholson from the shot and that the Secret Service didn’t have to restrain him. Though the YouTube video clearly shows an agent holding O’Reilly back as he yells at the staffer, calling him a “son of a bitch” and “low-class” as another agent sees the writing on the wall and warns O’Reilly “you don’t want to do that.” You can see the no-spin (ahem) version on tonight’s O’Reilly Factor.

While that may dash your belief in mankind, New Hampshire Senator John Sununu comes in to be the Gallant to O’Reilly’s Goofus. Earlier in the weekend, the senator saved an executive editor for the Bloomburg News Service from choking.

A piece of chicken got stuck in journalist Al Hunt’s windpipe Friday night at a Manchester restaurant. Sununu jumped up, put his arms around Hunt and popped the chicken out with the maneuver.

We’re excited by all the primary hubbub too. But you’ve still got to chew your chicken, Mr. Hunt.