Musafir's Musings

How sweet it is! It took a while but finally there are unmistakable signs that more and more Americans are beginning to see through the haze created by President Bush and his cohorts. The hollow man is no longer able to talk his way out. The Republicans are running scared. It is not time to break out the champagne.....not yet. The Democrats still paying for their abject surrender to fear of being branded unpatriotic and support of the president's war and the Patriot Act. They lack a message and a strong voice to be heard above the clamor. The Bush administration is not going to roll over. Expect to hear more about the danger from Iran, from Venezuela, from Cuba, and the ever-present terrorists lurking around corner. The American people can no longer be exhorted to respond to the call to back the president on Iraq. The president and his Strangelovian Veep desperately need a red herring...a bogey. They will try hard to create one.

• When President Bush and senior adviser Karl Rove mapped out plans for a political comeback in 2006, this was nowhere on the script. Suddenly, the collapse of a port-management deal neither even knew about a month ago has devastated the White House and raised questions about its ability to lead even fellow Republicans.

• "He has no political capital," said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster. "Slowly but surely it's been unraveling. There's been a direct correlation between the trajectory of his approval numbers and the -- I don't want to call it disloyalty -- the independence on the part of the Republicans in Congress."

It feels good to be proven right. From an Associated Press release this morning:

• More and more people, particularly Republicans, disapprove of President Bush's performance, question his character and no longer consider him a strong leader against terrorism, according to an AP-Ipsos poll documenting one of the bleakest points of his presidency.

• Nearly four out of five Americans, including 70 percent of Republicans, believe civil war will break out in Iraq--- the bloody hot spot upon which Bush has staked his presidency. Nearly 70 percent of people say the U.S. is on the wrong track, a 6-point jump since February.

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