Bad News For Bush

There’s been quite a bit of bad news for Bush these days, much of which has been eclipsed by the Reagan canonization, and I feel that it bears repeating here on this corner of the blogosphere.

Let's start with the Reagan stuff. As this Talking Points Memo Post points out, the startling thing about GWBush's website is how little of it is about him. It used to be all about John Kerry (the front page of the website was filled with goofy Kerry photos) and now it's all about Reagan. What this essentially means is that Bush is no longer running as himself, but instead as the anti-Kerry and sorta-Reagan. I'm pretty sure that's a terrible position for an incumbent to be in. Challengers are automatically the anti-incumbent. If the incumbent is the anti-challenger, it should give the challenger the edge in defining the terms of the national discourse.

Meanwhile, according to two new posts on the AP wires, Bush is getting little credit for the news jobs and a majority of Americans no longer feel that the Iraq war was justified. Regardless of whether you supported the war or not (I didn't) that's bad news for a President who boldly sold the American people a war of choice.

These two AP articles, taken together, are especially bad. Bush has always been good (and lucky) at switching focus. Just as things in Iraq spiral towards an experiment in chaos theory BAM the economy adds some jobs. Just as gas prices go up up up WHAMMO the new Iraq government begins to take shape.

Reagan's funeral has rescued Bush Administration from its dya of reckoning vis-a-vis torturing prisoners. This story continues to get worse and worse and worse as it moves slowly up up up the chain of command. Slate.com has a good article on the recently leaked memos from the Pentagon justifying use of torture of prisoners. Now I think there's a very good chance that Bush himself will escape from this torture hullabaloo unscathed. Hell, there's a chance he was kept in the dark about everything Rumsfeld and Ashcroft were planning for our prisoners, but I doubt that his administration can escape unscathed. Bush will almost certainly be left with a tough choice-- get rid of someone powerful and important in his administration (say, Rummy of Ash-face) and thus reveal his adminsitration's incompetance, or keep them on to "show strength" and look like someone who has no idea how to manage the "dream team" that his "CEO Presidency" promised us.

Kerry's chances look good. And his 7% lead in recent polls ain't bad either.