This is big news, but not because it remarkably effects the fortunes of the current administration. It’s big news because it does affect the political rhetoric leading into the ’08 election cycle. One of the key strategies of Democratic presidential hopefuls thus far has been castigating the misfires of the Bush administration. Gonzalez’s exit will justify for them adding one more item to their growing list of reasons not to vote for a Republican in ’08. If you vote Republican, you’ll get more of what you got with Bush. Their list of Bush bungles goes something like this:

Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News argues that Rudy Giuliani’s strength on national security may override concerns that evangelicals have about his liberal social views: “The Republican Party’s staunchest supporters of the war on terrorism . . . may be motivated by a candidate they believe will protect them against terrorism. In particular, that could help Mr. Giuliani overcome the conventional wisdom that a GOP dominated by Christian conservatives won’t nominate a social liberal for president. “‘The national security issues appeal to a number of evangelicals,’ said John Green, senior fellow at the Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life, who has long studied how religion motivates voters. ‘They…

President Bush called Karl Rove the “architect” of his electoral victory in 2004. Rove has been much more than that. He has also been a top advisor to President Bush in both of his administrations, and now he is resigning. Reports say that his departure is unrelated to congressional investigations concerning the firings of U.S. attorneys. “The Mark of Rove” – by Paul A. Gigot (Wall Street Journal) “Karl Rove, Adviser to President Bush, to Resign” – by Peter Baker and Debbi Wilgoren (Washington Post)

Chuck Colson will not endorse a candidate right now. But he has sized up the field of candidates running for President: “It is the most disappointing field of candidates, looking on both sides of the aisle, that I’ve seen in my lifetime. I don’t remember an election where less people have got me excited from either side.” I agree with that assessment. Well said.

The most encouraging analysis that I have read on the progress of the Iraq War is Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack’s Op-Ed piece in today’s New York Times. O’Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a foreign policy think-tank that is widely regarded as leaning liberal.

Last fall, Hugo Chavez stood before the United Nations and accused America of being an empire and charged President Bush with being the Devil incarnate (source). Many Americans wrote off Chavez’s rant as the raving of a crackpot dictator. What many people don’t know is that Chavez’s tirade against “American imperialism” reflects a mainstream view among many people both within and outside of the United States.

A must-read piece appears in Sunday’s Washington Post. It’s written by Muslin writer Mohsin Hamid. During a recent trip to Dallas, a man in a bookstore asked Hamid, “Why do they hate us?” The Dallas man was asking why the Islamic world hates the United States so much. The rest of the article is an answer to that question. The answer boils down to this: