This story's going to have legs if somebody gets indicted. I think the president has to lance the boil directly?. It starts with facing reality, accepting your share of responsibility without blinking.

I think the president has raised the stakes for himself. He has raised the stakes for his presidency, so that if there are more explosions in the next few months ... his approval ratings will suffer some more.

If Karl Rove were indicted, that would be like George W. Bush losing his right arm at a time when he needs every limb he's got to climb out of the hole he's in and to rebuild his presidency.

If people stay that long, group-think can set in, and that's dangerous for a president.

I don't think there's any other president in the modern era that has seen this kind of stability.

For a two-term president after the November elections in the middle of your second term, things start going downhill and you really do start quacking like a duck.