Larry Craig, selling the "surge," and the media

Man, I just love gaming-the-media stories like this. Especially when they end up turning on the cosmic interconnectedness of all things.

Solve this analogy:

Sen. Larry Craig is to Bush's "surge" plan as Michael Jackson is to ___________.

John Amato at Crooks and Liars pieces together a great theory: Bush-loyal Republicans are sweating bullets that the circus surrounding Craig's day-late-and-a-dollar-short decision to hang onto his Senate seat could totally suck the media coverage oxygen away from coverage of Gen. Petraeus's pre-fabbed report on Bush's Iraq "surge" next week.

The historical precedent for this prediction? FOX News usual suspect Neil Cavuto's conviction that the media feeding frenzy around Michael Jackson's latest child abuse scandal helped sink Bush's Social Security reform push a couple of years ago.

You can't make this stuff up.