Bush Presidency: FIERY WRECK!

This used to be my first comment in any Eschaton thread. I adapted it from this NYT piece, which three years later, sounds kinda prescient:

Five months after President Bush was sworn in for another four years, his political authority appears to be ebbing, both within his own party, where members of Congress are increasingly if sporadically going their own way, and among Democrats, who have discovered that they pay little or no price for defying him.

In some cases, Mr. Bush is suffering mere political dings that can be patched up, like the votes by the House this past week to buck him on withholding dues to the United Nations and retaining a controversial provision of the USA Patriot Act.

In others, the damage is more than cosmetic, as in the case of stem cell research, an issue on which a good portion of his party is breaking with him. In a few instances - most notably the centerpiece of his second-term agenda, his call to reshape Social Security - he is dangerously close to a fiery wreck that could have lasting consequences for his standing and for the Republican Party.

(Just as an aside, I think that bit about Democrats discovering that they pay little to no price for defying Bush was a bit premature. They only seem to have figured this out, well, about three weeks ago. But I digress...)

Have you seen Bush lately? He reminds me of the doofus that football players tolerate hanging around so they can send him out for a case of PBR when the keg runs dry, all the while silently praying that no one tosses him a beating. He looks perpetually abashed (as well he should), like the Geek in "Sixteen Candles" before he and Jake make the deal for Samantha's panties over martinis in Jake's party-trashed house. Getting those shoes thrown at him was probably most positive reaction Bush has gotten from anyone since Lehman Brothers went the way of Iraq, New Orleans, the Supreme Court, and everything else Bush has wrecked.

28 days until "Good Riddance to bad rubbish".

Photo: Thaier al-Sudani/Reuters