Deck Chairs, Titanic: The Bush administration will shuffle the org chart in its we're-not-Colonial Office. On top of David Kay's at-best-inconclusive interim report, there's a whiff of doom in the air, mostly because the administration's stated principles for the war are the very places where success is the hardest to come by. Meanwhile, the full-throated neocon cry for benign colonialism makes quiet gains every day, but the Bush administration can't get any I-told-you-so traction on it, since they decided to play down the human-rights/plight-of-the-Iraqi-people tack late last year, in favor of the WMD threat.

I have the feeling that the mainstream press would be writing Dubya's political obituary right now if there were a serious Democrat in the race. The more I think about it, the more I'm fascinated by Hillary's cold feet. The nomination is hers for the asking, while Bush appears to be in a hole and still digging.