TIME: MATTHEW COOPER - "Bush's Long Hot Summer"

[sabra]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1098858,00.html

Bush's Long Hot Summer
With his numbers slipping over Iraq and high gas prices, the president's advisers ponder what to do next

By MATTHEW COOPER

The North Carolina coast is Bush country. But when the Republican congressman from the area, Walter Jones, was picking up hardware at the local Lowe's last week he got an earful from constituents worried about the situation in Iraq and when the U.S. would start pulling out. "Everyone of them said we need some kind of goal line. The Vietnam veterans were especially upset," says Jones who does not favor immediate withdrawal from Iraq but has offered a bipartisan resolution in Congress—along with liberals like Ohio Dem Dennis Kucinich—calling on the administration to come up with some kind of road map for pullout. "I don't know who his speechwriters are," Jones says of the President " but we need to better articulate the guidelines of what is victory."

This has been a tough summer for the Bush Administration. While the President tries to relax on his five week Texas vacation, he's had to contend with deteriorating military and political conditions in Iraq, a Woodstock-like peace protest at the edge of his Crawford compound led by Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan, declining public opinion polls (that are echoed by "even worse" internal polling, says one Bush adviser), high oil prices and a recognition that things are not likely to turn around anytime soon. A senior Bush official attributes the president's collapsing poll numbers to "high gas prices and a lot of anxiety about the war" and acknowledges "that's not likely to change anytime soon." A cruel summer is likely to fade into an autumn of discontent as congressmen like Jones come back to Washington having heard complaints from constituents.

So what's the White House plan? There really isn't much of one. If anything, there's a certain sense of fatalism among Bush staffers, a belief that the difficult moments in Iraq just have to be toughed out and that there is no ready cure at hand other than to make the case to stay the course as he did last week when he addressed National Guard troops in Idaho. As for the president himself, Bush is hyperresolute about the situation in Iraq according to advisers. "One of the things that's real consistent about this President is that he doesn't spook," says Bush's media advisor Mark McKinnon.

When it comes to Iraq, White House officials recognize that there are not a lot of options other than to keep training Iraqi troops and hope that they can assume more of the responsibility for defending their own country. Increasingly though that seems like a pipe dream even to conservatives who have supported the war. Last week no fewer than three conservative columnists expressed disappointment with the president. William Kristol, the neoconservative editor of The Weekly Standard, and a strong proponent of the Iraq war, wrote that it was a "terrible signal" to insurgents as well as allies to draw down forces at all; Tony Blankley, the editorial page editor of conservative The Washington Times, pondered why Bush wasn't asking for more troops, and former Bush speechwriter David Frum said the president was using his bully pulpit "very badly indeed" in making the case for war. Most of the letters that poured in for Frum's article from fellow conservatives were positive.

[Skidmore]

1. Too bad he even had a summer on the national dime, Mr. Cooper.

If you had just told the sordid story you knew before the election, the nation would have been spared a second term of this criminal clown.

[opihimoimoi]

4. The NeoCons are so desperate, they even announced an appeal that reached

here at the DU for answers to the Iraq Equation...

They bought the farm, lock stock and Barrel, in Bush...and if that boy don't grow things...don't look at us for answers....

"Our numbers are even worse" re his poll #'s going down...

[dogday]

2. It's been more than a one-two punch for this Administration

DSM, followed by Rovegate, followed by Cindy Sheehan.

Shrub has had a miserable few months.

:toast: Here's to putting it to this administration and holding them accountable for all these f**k-ups in this war and with this country. Starting with their determined goal of separating this country. They have divided this country like I have never seen before. I hold them responsible for that.

[Frustratedlady]

5. What a Poor Choice of Words...

"One of the things that's real consistent about this President is that he doesn't spook," says Bush's media advisor Mark McKinnon

What do you call hiding behind Momma's skirt?

Gotta go clean my keyboard, so I can finish reading the article!

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. "there are not a lot of options"

"other than to keep training Iraqi troops and hope that they can assume more of the responsibility for defending their own country."

What bullshit! There are lots of options but the Bush administration refuses to consider any of them.

With the billions being spent there is no reason why we can't keep a country of 25 million people under control. But first you have to keep the water running and the electric on. You have to have some reasonable system of law enforcement with a set of laws to enforce. Bush has destroyed all of that and refuses to fix any of it. Until then all the defenses in the world will never fix Iraq.

[ultraist]

6. The NC coast is full of Repubs AND military families!

There are several major bases along the NC coastal area. People in that region tend to be very pro military. It's telling that they too, are getting fed up!

[cliss]

7. Well, now. (pushes aside crystal ball)

You don't need a crystal ball to tell what's going to happen next. According to this article, Bush's sinking popularity is driven by 2 things: a) the war in Iraq and b) rising gas prices.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that gas prices are actually the main concern of Americans right now. It's very clear to me that Bush has no solutions to either catastrophe.

And we really haven't even begun to see the impact of super-high gas. We're going to see a steady stream of companies folding; trucking companies, farms, transportation, delivery companies, anything that relies heavily on gas. = essentially everything.

Watch the spiraling layoffs, downsizing, bankruptcies, lack of health insurance. It's going to be a snowball effect that's only just started.

Bush has made it clear what he's going to do = nothing. He's finished.

[Me.]

8. "are echoed by "even worse" internal polling"

No surprise there! I'm waiting for him to hit 25 and then it will be all over for good, and I expect that to happen by the end of the year. And we haven't even touched on any of the repercussions from the Fitzgerald investigation! But it's not good enough for B*** to become the most reviled president in history, it has to be the whole neocon, Carlyle group, right wing cabal and think tanks, kit and caboodle.

[sabra]

9. I imagine the Abu Ghraib photos and vids won't help either...