If I were in the White House, I would be more concerned about the independent, who have dropped some 20 points over the last 18 months.

They don't. And, of course, the best thing the Republicans have going for them is the Democrats.

Well, they could continue indefinitely. And that's the problem, and because I -- it -- it -- two veterans of Washington each told me individually today they had never seen an administration collapse as completely and as quickly as this one…

Well, Iraq is certainly the largest part of it, because there has been unrelieved bad news from Iraq, except for an occasional election.

It's not in the country's interest to have a crippled president.

And the second thing is that there's a high degree of denial that seems to start at the top, and a -- and a reluctance to tell the president, 'Mr. President, you know, as much as we might like to think things are going well in Iraq, or as…

But, you know, from the country's point of view, it's really important that we focus on Iran and deal with that wisely.

They have to come up with their own policy? Absolutely. And Paul Begala is right. They have many policies; they don't have unity.

I thought tonight that Tim Kaine gave a surprisingly effective response.

The speech was like the Sherlock Holmes dog that didn't bark. It didn't say a lot of new things. He did not lay out an aggressive or bold new plan for Iraq.

He's got three long years ahead of him as president of the United States. This is not some sort of TV show that runs out of its ratings and suddenly is canceled.

This is a very important nomination because he is -- the president is now replacing Justice O'Connor, who has been a swing vote -- vote on many abortion cases -- he's replacing a moderate conservative with a strong conservative.