The Washington Times is calling on Speaker Hastert to resign as a result of his actions, or his inaction, regarding the Mark Foley scandal. In the end, it may be politically necessary as well as the right thing to do. The Republicans were making up ground in the polls until this scandal broke, which has outraged people across the political spectrum. The scandal plays right into the Democratic campaign narrative of an out-of-touch Republican Congress that has grown lazy and corrupt while in power. It could have the effect of dampening GOP turnout while flipping some independents toward the Democrats. Certainly, we are close enough to the election now for this to have some effect on the outcome, unless something else breaks between now and then.

Arnaud de Borchgrave has an interesting column about the predictions of a foreign policy expert concerning our military plans regarding Iran. He says this expert got everything right in the run up to the Iraq War. The bottom line? Sometime in the next two years, after diplomacy has played itself out, the President will order a comprehensive bombing campaign against Iran to not only destroy their nascent nuclear capability, but to also cripple their military and political structures to bring about a collapse of their regime. If he is right, it will be a political and economic disaster for the country which will ensure a Democratic take-over of the Presidency as well as Congress in 2008. It will also, in all likelihood, fail from a military standpoint.