James Wolcott, today:

I look at it this way: If a year ago, anyone had predicted that Tom DeLay would be under indictment, Bill Frist would be under the microscope on a cheesy stock deal, a guilty plea would have been obtained in the AIPAC scandal, and one of the leading neo-cons--Cheney's #2--would be hit with five indictments and forced to resign--we would have thought the fortune teller was dipping into the cough medicine

Me, almost a year ago:

Nixon won re-election in 1972 with 49 states. Two years later, his presidency collapsed.

Reagan won re-election in 1984 with 49 states. Two years later, scandal had crippled it to the point that had Reagan faced the 1973 Congress, he too would have had to resign. As it was, his administration achieved nothing of consequence after the name "Oliver North" became a household word.

This administration pushed off a lot of bad news until today or later. Regardless of ballot counting - which is not over - don't think the battle is over in any way. Every statistic I've seen so far shows not that most of the country agrees with the Bush administration, but that several million who do not (particularly in blue states), and the kids most likely to be targeted for a draft simply did not show up yesterday.

The people who show up make the decisions.

I'm not sure I got the day-after electoral math correct, but I've already seen GOP apologists writing this off as a "typical" second-term presidential scandal. There, I have to agree: for the past thirty years, it's become abundantly clear in the second terms of Republican presidents that they can't be trusted with national security. There too, Bush is no maverick.