There have been a number of political analysts over the past week who have come to similar analysis of the Olmert situation. That is, that Olmert knows his career is over, at least until he is proven innocent if that should ever happen, and he knows we are on the path to early elections. Olmert knows he has to go and it is a matter of days to a couple of weeks before new elections are officially declared. He is done and he knows it.

The thing is, the analysts say, is that he will nto kowtow to pressure and manhandling. he is looking for a graceful way out. He will not listen take threats from Barak, he will not threats from Shas, he will not take threats from fellow Kadima members, etc. He will not go out in any way that makes him look like he is giving in, or any way that makes him look guilty.

The suggestion that he is calling for primaries upon his return from this weeks trip to the US, is possibly that graceful exit.

I have another suggestion. Even better. This would provide him a graceful way out immediately.

Olmert should call a press conference tomorrow morning and announce this: His prostate cancer has been found to have slightly grown in recent weeks. He has been having some pain. he needs to take time off to deal with it, as he is having a difficult time functioning the way it is right now.

The media will go crazy for a bit and he will have left us.

You might suggest that such a use of a medical condition is extremely cynical and immoral, and you would be right. I would agree with that.

But Olmert has already used it on two seperate occassions.

He announced he had found a cancerous growth whenhe was at the height of one of his investigations. Most people think it was to gain sympathy.

The second time was recently when the police wanted him to clear some time for an interrogatiopn and he refused to saying he had absolutely no time. Suddenly, after a few months of our not hearing a word about his cancer, he had to have an urgent MRI to analyze the growth.

So Olmert has used it already twice for personal gain, so I see nothign wrong with him using it now as his ticket to a graceful exit.