In this
Washington Post article, a number of quotes from Republicans caught my eye. If you thought Bush was being attacked from the far right (Miers nomination, fiscal respomsibility), and the moderate right (torture, elective wars), he's now getting it from all parts of his own party. Left, right, middle, up down...
When you're a Republican president, and mainstream conservatives start deserting you en masse, you know you are in big trouble.
More on the flip...
In this, GWB's worst week in office, it is easy for us on the left to take shots at him while he's down. Apparently it's easy for those on the right as well. Check out these quotes from the Washington Post:
First this:
House Government Reform Committee Chairman Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) was stinging, saying he was "very disappointed in Libby, and the White House, and the vice president and the president."
"They should have taken care of this a long time ago," Davis said in an interview. "They should have done their own investigation. They're going to get very little sympathy on Capitol Hill, at least from me. . . . They brought this on themselves."
and then this from a former GOP congressmen:
Citing both the indictment and the withdrawal of Harriet Miers's nomination to the Supreme Court on Thursday, former GOP congressman Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma said: "The president got a pretty good wake-up call. He needs to stop thinking about his grand legacy and being the all-time hero of the Republicans and concentrate on doing the job he was elected to do. He really has to get a grip on his administration."
Ouch, that hurts! That is so true. Bush is always saying how history will judge him -- as if he will be proven right about everything in 50 years. Well can we start judging him sooner, while we still have a chance to save our country? One Republican congressmen thinks now's as good a time as any:
But Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) echoed Democrats' complaints that Americans deserve better from White House staffers and urged Bush to condemn Libby more forcefully because he had campaigned in 2000 as someone who would provide a sharp contrast to the tumult of the Clinton years.
"They wanted the president to restore honor and integrity to the White House," Shays said. "Whatever agenda the president wants to pursue, if he hasn't reestablished a strong ethical standard, he's going to fail. . . . Americans don't like to be lied to."
No we don't. And if you're running for something in '06 and you see Bush a-comin', you better run the other way. Our friend John Podesta kind of summed it up best with this observation:
John D. Podesta, who was chief of staff to Clinton, said Bush may be more constrained by his troubles than Clinton was by his. Noting that Clinton's approval ratings remained above 60 percent throughout the impeachment battle, while Bush's are in the low 40s, Podesta said, "When Clinton said, 'I'm going back to do my work,' people cheered," Podesta said. "When Bush says, 'I'm going to do the job I've been doing,' people say, 'Oh, no.'"
And my favorite part:
At the top of the list of public concerns about Bush's policies is Iraq, with festering unease about the mission evident in every sampling of public opinion in recent months. The long leak investigation and the Libby indictment threaten to rekindle the debate over how the United States went to war, only this time with the administration, rather than Bush's opponents, on the defensive.
Given that reality, it may be difficult for Bush to regain the credibility he enjoyed earlier in his presidency with regard to the war on terrorism. "I very much doubt they will be able to repair the damage," said Tom De Luca, a professor of political science at Fordham University. "Once you lose credibility, it's almost impossible to get it back."
Bush can stand up and spout the same talking points all he wants. No one's buying it any more. Same talking points, same hand-picked audiences. It ain't workin' no more.
The hits Bush is taking from his own party are pretty damaging. Wilkerson's comments from last week, Bush's defeats on the torture amendment and the wage issue, the Miers nomination, and Plamegate are all showing the cracks in his own base. Even mainstream Republicans in the heartland can now see how we went to war on a lie. If you throw in the high gas prices, I think you can expect Bush's poll numbers to fall into the low 30s by Thanksgiving (if they're not already there). The public is smart enough to know they've been duped. People feel singed, and they are going to want revenge. I don't see how the White House can crawl out of this hole, because I've never seen a deeper one. Not Iran-Contra, not Lewinsky. This will be on a par with Watergate when the whole truth about the run-up to the war comes out.
You know, you can get away with 100 lies, but if you get caught in the 101st, people will start to realize you've been lying all along. That is what America is going through now. They are waking up to what we knew in the beginning -- everything Bush has done is a sham and a put-on. While Bush's friends eat caviar, American men and women return in flag draped caskets.