Let me finish tonight with this bad experience we've all been through.
What we saw - what I saw at least - was one guy with a knife and the other guy trying to avoid being cut. It was a thug attacking a victim. It was a mugging.
Now the good news - the "relief" is a better word - is that the victim got through it. The bad news is that the mugger got what he wanted. He got the wallet. Now I put to you the most important question of the week, of the month, of the year, of this presidency, of our time? Is there any doubt that he - the mugger - will try it again?
Not a wit.
This morning, the Republican leader of the Senate declared his intention to name not a single member of the new special joint committee to make the second cut in the debt that is open to tax or revenue increases.
So the mugging continues. Again and again and again, the people who perpetrated this assault on the president will come back to do it again. The gang will be back and each time will make new demands, make no concessions, do exactly what they want to get what they want.
And what they want is to control the U.S. government to their ends without even having to win the White House or control of the U.S. Congress. They can carry on the Bush economic policy right through the end of this presidency - as long as they're willing to mug and the president is willing to turn over the wallet.