Wednesday digest III

- Video footage captured here of Cindy Sheehan today, echoing the comments made by some frequenters of this blog - I wouldn't want anyone to feel that they're alone - while a titan of the Right predicts that the Angry Left may indeed get their way:

During the break, I was channel surfing around, and Tim Russert made this point. He said that with Robert Gates coming in to replace Rumsfeld -- and, by the way, I don't know what is going to happen here. My experience has always been that when you give the left a scalp, they just want more. So who will be their next target? Condoleezza Rice? Cheney?

I can tell you that some of the fringe kook Democrats, it remains to be seen since they bombed out with their chosen candidate Ned Lament, just how much influence they're going to have over Democrats' governing, but they're going to make demands for Rumsfeld to be brought up with war crimes investigations in Congress. I think some Republicans are going to say, "It's a smart political move to get rid of Rumsfeld. Just get that distraction off the table. Do it now. Don't wait 'til the end of the year. Do it now and take that issue off the table for the Democrats." The problem is my experience in the past is it doesn't take issues off the table, it just makes them hungrier.

It just makes them say: "Okay, we got one scalp. We can go get another."

You know they've been calling for the resignation or the impeachment of all these people for a number of years: Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, a whole bunch of 'em. I think the subpoenas are going to be flying.

Instead, Dems should avoid this fate by jettisoning the whackjobs like the lady I mentioned above and moderating because you know that the Republicans are going to clean up their act like only Republicans can. No one comes from behind like the GOP, '08 isn't far away, and don't think for a second that al-Qaeda would love every bit of vengeance directed W's way because it would demonstrate internal weakness and a lack of American resolve - every terrorist's best weapon.

Frum:

If the empowered Democrats succumb to their instincts to go the way of Michael Moore and MoveOn.org and Daily Kos, well then this will be the shortest-lived congressional victory since the Republicans' suicidal two-year ascendancy in 1947-49. But if they are smart enough and tough enough to break from their past bad instincts and give the Republicans a real tussle on the national security issue, then America's friends and foes abroad will be startled to discover that what happened last night was a sharp move toward the Democratic party--without any move at all to the political or ideological left.