The first look at the new Republicans
Perhaps not having the need absolute unity in the face of a common enemy could prove to be a problem for the Republicans. Their first congressional charge, the signing into law of the Intelligence Reform Bill, has turned into an absolute shambles. This was a bill that President Bush personally supported and endorsed, one if which he had based a number of future plans on. The Senate Republicans passed it and sent it to Congress, where a clique of hard-line Republicans derailed the voting to reject it, largely on the merits of the Bill's proposed removal of budget authority for the Pentagon (which had made Rumsfeld a silent opponent).

The lack of Democrat parity in both the House and Senate may well infer that we will be seeing more of this type of in-fighting. If there's no need for the Republicans to fear the Democrats, they may well fear each other, a prospect that may dent to unified image of the Republican Party, and have Democrats licking their lips for Election 2008.