AND THE NEWS CYCLE LEAPS FORWARD AGAIN. Ben says Rumsfeld's resignation cuts against the talking head's attempts to spin the election as a conservative victory. In fact, it does more than that. It ends it. The talking heads won't be spending time constructing metanarratives about yesterday's election, now they'll be chattering over the simple facts of the Democratic Party's win and the resultant shakeup of Bush's cabinet. For the Dems, it just gets better and better. Their ascension will be judged the reason behind Rumsfeld's defeat, and as elite wisdom had decided Rummy was the entirety of the problem behind Iraq, that'll rebound to their benefit, at least for the short-term. In the long-term, the Iraq war isn't failing because of bad staff, it's failing because of intrinsic flaws. The upside of Gates may be that he can inch towards redeployment. If he decides to "stay the course," (a term which, according to Bush, refers to a general hope of victory, not any "course" you have to "stay on"), he'll just be next year's Rummy. Given Bush's evident desire to keep this war going till he leaves office, that would seem the likeliest outcome.
--Ezra Klein
