Rummy Watch

Don't think for a minute that the Bush White House will hesitate to toss Don Rumsfeld overboard if the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal suggests such a course. All policy and personnel decisions are in the re-election orbit from here on out.

We might even see some sort of weird reshuffling where Rummy takes the hit, the electoral dead-weight of Dick Cheney slides over to his natural habitat at Defense, and an unhappy Colin Powell is lured back to a second term with the Veep slot, which also opens State up for some conservative red-meater to keep the latter-day adherents of "Wilsonian buncombe" thundering along quite happily.

Crazy? Undoubtedly, but these are most insane times.