You have made your point six or seven times. You are starting to sound like you have an agenda.
My agenda is to vent. I am flabbergasted that this has gone down this way with Hillary standing to gain....
My conclusions:
Bush Republicanism is largely incoherent and absolutely politically dumb.
How can Rove, Card, Bush et al allow this to happen. You cannot say, "I'll keep you safe, the Dems are out to lunch on security" and know that the only poll question you and your beleagured party lead on is natgional security and then let this happen. It is incomprehensible and really unhelpeful to one's partisan allies... not to mention self maiming. Can Team Bush possibly think that a Rat Congress will be good for it?
So the better question is, how much hay will Hillary and the Dems make out of this? And how far will GOP fortunes dip for the '06 midterms?