ANDREW SULLIVAN says some nice things about my post on Iraq from last night, and asks, very kindly, “how does he do it?”

The answer, I’m afraid, is “at some cost.” Presently involving my health. The cold that sidelined me a couple of weeks ago has turned into either bronchitis or “walking pneumonia,” (I’m not sure which, and the doctor mentioned both) and now I’m on antibiotics and trying to rest in between grading exams. Blogging may be reduced for a while.

UPDATE: Thanks for the emails. I’m not dying or anything, though — just feeling the same moderately-crappy way I’ve felt for a while, with perhaps a slight additional wooziness from the antibiotics. I’ll be back.

Meanwhile, go read Jeff Jarvis on popularity and priorities, and the “lynch mob” forming for Rumsfeld.

This is a real scandal, worthy of real attention — but it’s now moved past reality to the point of being overhyped by people whose real goals have nothing to do with justice. Nothing whatsoever.

Longtime Rumsfeld critic Donald Sensing agrees:

Long-time readers of this blog know that I have no membership card of the Donald Rumsfeld fan club.

But the calls for his head are both idiotic and deceptive. . . .

Deceptive because Rummy is taking the fire, but Bush is the target. A more purely partisan, crass, politically-motivated campaign I have never seen. And yes, I include the Ken Starr investigation.

The Dems’ hot rhetoric will backfire, I think. Look for Kerrey’s numbers to drop.

It’s my sense that they’re overplaying their hand here.