The cover story of this coming Sunday's New York Times Magazine asks the provocative question: "The End of Republican America?" The photo below it shows a red, inflatable elephant -- collapsed and leaking air.

"Karl Rove had a plan to realign American politics for generations.  Now GOP leaders are struggling to prevent another 1964," reads the rest of the cover tag.  The article was penned by Benjamin Wallace-Wells, who also writes for Rolling Stone.

Ken Mehlman, the former party chairman, says in the massive piece, "What is concerning is that we lost ground in every one of the highest-growth demographics" in 2006. "If there are Republicans out there who think that 2006 was a year that could be changed by a few votes in a few districts," he adds, "they need to wake up."

Much of the article examines the plight of Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who is in charge of turning around the GOP's fortunes.  But the article notes, "In their intimacy with the numbers, many Republican operatives now worry that crucial segments of the electorate are slipping away from them." For example, "Republicans had traditionally won the votes of independents; in 2006, they lost them by 18 percent... Suburban voters, long a Republican constituency, favored Democrats in 2006 for the first  time since 1992."

Says longtime GOP candidate/consultant Rich Bond:  "Tom was dealt an almost unwinnable hand."

Many more Republicans than Democrats are stepping down this year, making it almost impossible for the GOP to make gains, the article relates.  The influential Cook Political Report offers an even worse assessment, projecting that 12 of the 14 seats most likely to change hands now belong to Republicans. But Cole sees fully 75 seats in play and feels John McCain at top of ticket will help in many.

"Cole's strategy is not complicated," Wallace-Wells observes, "but it does contain an essential difficulty: at a moment when Washington is deeply unpopular, he wants his candidates to run as insurgents, but voters still identify Republcians with that they don't like about Washington."  

But Cole promises to  define  Nancy Pelosi as THE face of the Democrats as a party too liberal - too "San Francisco" -- for the country.

And the writer also notes:  "The perversity of Cole's position is that the consummate party man has arrived at precisely the moment when the party is eroding beneath him.  The problem is the money."  

The Democratic party has built an 8-1 advantage over the GOP's main apparatus. Comments House minority leader John Boehner on the party's fundraising: "It stinks."

Greg Mitchell's new book is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq.  It features a preface by Bruce Springsteen and foreword by Joe Galloway, and has been hailed by  Bill Moyers and Glenn Greenwald, among others.  It was the featured selection in the TPM Book Club last week.

As the U.S. death toll neared 4000 in Iraq -- four more killed this since Friday --  President Bush gave the country another pep talk this week on staying the course, while continuing to argue that history will wash the blood off his hands.  Nothing has changed in his claim that when humans, or God, look back at this episode, it will seem like only a "comma."

Back in September 2006, I was first to trace the derivation of this "comma" reference (and a chapter about it appears in my new book on Iraq and the media).

CNN  had aired an interview with President Bush conducted by Wolf Blitzer, who asked about the latest setbacks in Iraq and indications that civil war may be at hand.  Bush, with a  slight smile, replied,  "Yes, you see -- you see it on TV, and that's the power of an enemy that is willing to kill innocent people. But there's also an unbelievable will and resiliency by the Iraqi people.... I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is -- my point is, there's a strong will for democracy."

Even for Bushisms,  this was an odd one. Maybe he meant "coma."  No, that would be too negative. 

A comma as a metaphor perhaps?  If so, for what?  All that bloodshed as merely a comma -- a pause in a long sentence -- leading to a hopeful phrase or conclusion?   Comma, "and they all lived happily ever after"?  Or maybe, comma, "and then we bombed Iran"?

Of course, one can think of other punctuation that might be apt,  including "?" for the 150,000 Americans still deployed there,  "!" for the cries of  the gravely injured, and "$" for Halliburton and other contractors.  

Or perhaps, as in the comics pages, when an angry character really wants to curse:   "!@#%^&*()#*"

Like many others, I was initially confused -- though appalled -- when President Bush stated that  the Iraq war will be viewed as "just a comma."  Perhaps he meant to say "asterisk" but did not know how to pronounce it.   Or maybe he meant "blip" or "footnote" -- though that wouldn't make the sentiment any less revolting, especially for the thousands of dead.

That sent me googling in search of an answer, which I soon found.  This is it: He didn't quite finish his thought, and meant to state that  the Iraq war will be viewed as "just a comma, not a <em>period</em>." 

Not surprisingly, this is rooted in current Christian teaching, often in reference to Jesus's death, or more generally as "Don't put a period where God puts a comma."

Where does this come from? Not directly from the scripture, apparently.  A quote by comedienne Gracie Allen is cited on many religious Web sites: "Never place a period where God has placed a comma."

United Church of Christ parishes in Massachusetts were recently urged to put that quote on banners during Lent and color in the words as the weeks went by.

Of course, many of us of a certain age remember Gracie Allen, the actual and TV wife of the legendary George Burns.  Memo to the president: She was the batty one who often talked nonsense. 
 
Or as a minister at a United Church of Christ in Los Angeles recently put it, admiringly:   "She would have said whatever came to her mind in a full voice, and lived out its conviction."   Sound familiar?

An article in the St. Petersburg Times in November 2005, described a new TV commercial by the UCC -- not a conservative, but a progressive church -- which featured a large comma.  "Weighing in on the commercial," the article concluded, "evangelist Pat Robertson is said to have remarked, 'Never place a comma where God has placed a period. God has spoken!'"

And so has the president.  Did he fail to finish his thought -- linking  the comma to the period -- for fear of invoking his Christianity in discussing a murderous war?  Or did he want to avoid being linked to Gracie Allen?  In any case, the death toll represented by  this little old "comma," now stands at almost 4000.

Period.

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Greg Mitchell's new book is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq.  It features a preface by Bruce Springsteen and foreword by Joe Galloway, and has been featured this week in the TPM Book Club.