Welcome to 201k.com - A Commonwealth Perspective.

They just can't stop saying it.

One outside adviser to the White House said Mr. Bush's political staff was inclined to compromise on Ms. Rice's testimony, judging the political costs of continuing to fight in the midst of a tight re-election campaign to outweigh any cost from showing flexibility on the principle.

"It's fair to say many of the senior political advisers understand the principle but have a more pragmatic view," said the adviser, who insisted on anonymity, saying he wanted to keep his role behind the scenes.

This adviser said Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's senior adviser and political strategist, wanted to move the election away from questions like "Were there intelligence failures?" and to put the focus instead on which candidate could better protect against any future efforts by terrorists to attack the United States.

"If we're going to have a discussion about W.M.D. and intelligence failures and Osama bin Laden, that's not an election George W. Bush wins," the adviser said. "If it's about who keeps you safer, that's the ground we want to be on."

See, if the "discussion" is about those pesky factual things--W.M.D, intelligence failures or Osama bin Laden--that's bad. But if it's about a nice vague political talking point uncluttered by facts or evidence, like, "who keeps you safer", well, that's just dandy for the White House.

Once again, it's not reality that matters--it's how you look at it.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain; just keep looking at the smoke and fire.