There's nothing much left to say, really, that hasn't already been said about Rovegate / Plamegate / Uraniumgate / Leakgate or whatever it is that we're calling this current scandal this week, except this - it's over. Not the scandal, but the so-called political capital Bush was so looking forward to spending. As this whole thing unravels, and the flimsy and ever-changing rationale for going to war is exposed for the conspiracy that it is, the administration will increasingly find itself more and more on the defensive, its former seemingly invincible position eroding away beneath it. So, no easy nomination of right-wing Supreme Court nominees, no Social Security reform, no broad support for Iraq, no repression of stem-cell research, no moratorium on greenhouse-gas reform.

Second-term presidencies are rarely fun. Nixon had Watergate, impending impeachment and ultimately resignation to deal with. Reagan had Contra-gate, and Clinton had Monica. Bush will ultimately have to accept Rove's resignation to save face from having to fire him, having already foolishly vowed to fire whoever released the name of a CIA operative to the press. But that shouldn't stop the questions about our "rationale" for invading a sovereign foreign nation - why was the administration so desperate for any excuse to invade Iraq that it manufactured the uranium-from-Africa story? Why was it so vindictive that it ratted out the wife of a critic of its stance?

If the Dems play their cards right, it sounds to me that there is a lot more ground for impeachment here than in lying about having sex with an intern.

Poor, dim-witted George Bush - how will you make it through the rest of your second term without Karl Rove?