Republicans are hoping that North Korea's nuke test will divert attention from the Mark Foley scandal and move it right back into a comfortable campaign theme: the ever-present threat of total obliteration. Call it the politics of "Hope You Don't Die in a Massive Blast of Radiation."

If a recent Newsweek poll is any indication, the Republicans should be sending Kim Jong Il thank-you notes. Bush's approval rating is 33 percent (a record low for his presidency), and 53 percent of Americans want to see a Democratic Congress in November. What could be better for the GOP than a threat to national security?

Some Washington insiders claim Bush blew it on North Korea, but New York's own Democratic senator Chuck "I Love Sundays" Schumer helped Republicans shift the agenda. Schumer called Bush's response to the test "sober, somber, appropriate" and then went back to his familiar chorus of port-security funding. What a waste of a good dig.