-- Washington Post headline about an exhausted Andrew Card's long-expected departure as chief of staff

A few weeks ago, President Bush's spokesman dismissed talk that his warrantless wiretaps were illegal as "inside Washingtonton babble."

But the White House announcement today that the 2006 mid-term elections would proceed as scheduled suggests that Bush was listening.

In the years since the invasion of Iraq, liberal critics have contended that Bush is contemptuous of the...