In trying to play to the president's rapidly fraying base, losing Tenet clearly makes some short-term political sense for Bush. Had he axed Rummy, armchair warriors around the country led by the likes of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh would have had a hissy fit. Even if he had kept Rumsfeld, but prevailed upon him to get rid of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz or Undersecretaries of Defense Douglas Feith and Stephen Cambone -- the geniuses who, at the very least, "let" Abu Ghraib happen -- then the neocon cabal, small in number but overwhelming in screeching power, would have howled the house down in their wildest banshee chorus.

Tenet's resignation will play well, at least for the moment, with Bush's most loyal and uncritical base, the phalanx of true-believing, Christian right, Southern and heartland conservatives who overwhelmingly comprise his majority in the House of Representatives. Sure enough, there has not been a whisper of criticism from that quarter. "I welcome the change at the top of the agency," said Rep. Rob Simmons, R-Conn.

Bush loyalists in the Senate were equally supportive. "I do think this is a positive move, for him personally and for the agency," said former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi.

But the drumbeat of reactions from most congressmen on Capitol Hill was as clearly divided as any red-blue map of America in November 2000 -- with Democrats invariably calling for more heads to roll and Republicans avoiding the topic.

The only apparent division within Republican ranks, at this early stage, was personal rather than political, though it was a highly revealing one. Partisans like Simmons, Lott and many others lost no time in dumping on Tenet. More moderate and independent-minded senators like Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Pat Roberts of Kansas, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, praised Tenet as a decent man who had done his best, though Roberts also said he was glad to see him go.

In the rare exception of a House Republican standing out from the lockstep crowd, Rep. Porter Goss of Florida also praised the fallen intelligence chief as a man who had done the best he or anyone else could to rebuild the agency. "Just boatloads of stuff have been dumped on him by all kinds of people," he pointed out.

Tenet's departure will not change the current dynamic of partisan politics immediately. But even if it does not blow apart Bush's fragile coalition, it is unlikely to appease the anger building up against the president outside it. The Republican Party's core bases will remain loyal, but the broader constituencies the party has taken for granted for so long will continue to unravel.

In Washington and among the national media that thrive there, Tenet's fall vastly overshadowed Rumsfeld's approval of a new "stop-loss" policy that may keep scores of thousands of exhausted U.S. troops, including Army reservists and National Guard members, in Iraq for up to 18 months longer. Nor has this harsh and discriminatory policy, which penalizes the most idealistic and selfless of "red" America's patriotic core, gone unnoticed by the families and friends of those who are going to pay the price.

The true architects of catastrophe in Iraq continue to sit safely in the Pentagon. Will the American people be satisfied with Tenet's gesture? Not if the count of body bags coming home continues its relentless rise. And it assuredly will.

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