Newsweek - Republicans are reassessing Bush’s leadership skills

[Kadie]

Panic on the Hill

Republicans are reassessing Bush’s leadership skills—and confronting the idea that he could lose the November election

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
Updated: 4:44 p.m. ET May 21, 2004

May 21 - Like the movie, "No Way Out," Iraq can only get worse; it can't get better. Gen. John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command, said as much when he testified this week before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the violence would increase after the June 30 handover and that the Iraqis won't be ready to assume responsibility for security until April 2005.

Who is President Bush kidding when he talks of turning over sovereignty to the Iraqis? No one yet has been identified to give power to, and the Pentagon's love affair with Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi is over. American troops stormed Chalabi's residence and offices in Baghdad, a remarkable reversal of fortune for a man who was on the U.S. payroll until this month, and who provided most of the phony intelligence that formed the Bush administration's basis for war.


The Bush juggernaut looks like the Keystone Cops. What's going on would be pure farce, except it's tragedy because so many people are dying. Missiles slam into what Iraqis said was a wedding ceremony, leaving women and children among the dead. Israel is going crazy in the Gaza Strip, bulldozing Palestinian homes and shooting into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators. At home, gas prices are rising to an all-time high and in Canton, Ohio, a steel plant that Bush touted as a model last year announced it was closing, costing another 1,300 jobs in a state that has already lost 170,000 in the manufacturing sector.


Surveying the wreckage, an aide to a prominent Senate Republican termed it a "perfect storm of bad events."


more... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5032508/site/newsweek/

[shraby]

1. The United States is

the other train headed for the wreck..unfortunately.

[AntiCoup2K4]

2. Would they "LBJ" Junior?

Hey why not? It's already painfully obvious that PNAC couldn't care less who the frontman is.

[Tellurian]

3. and confronting the idea that he could lose the November election

Mighty Big Crack---this!

[against all enemies]

4. Bush states " Republicans are UnAmerican"

You are either with us or against us. McCain and Warner are the leaders of the Anti-bush, Anti-Americans. Don't ever question King George or the wrathof Karl Rove will visit you.

[grytpype]

5. I'm worried Bush isn't going to be the Repug candidate.

If we run against Bush, it's a landslide for us, anyone else would be an unknown quantity.

[Old and In the Way]

8. Too much pride and arrogance to quit.

He'll let the Party go down in flames before he'd do the right thing.

But either way, the Republican's are pooched.

They had the majority in Congress, Executive, and the SCOTUS.....and in spite of this, they've consistantly gone against the best interests of the American people. They've screwed up our economy, our international reputation, and drained our Treasury.

Bringing in a lame-duck candidate will split the Bush boosters (RW/Fundies) from the moderate middle. They still lose.

[Gothmog]

6. Bush is not going to bow out

Bush is pretending to believe that he is going to win in November. I can not see Bush doing a "LBJ" because it would be the right thing to do.

Hopefully, the rupugs are right to be worried and that a Bush loss may cost them seats in the House and hopefully control of the Senate.

[sundancekid]

7. looks to me like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic ...

here's another key paragraph from the same linked story above:


<snip>
What's going on is a reassessment of Bush's leadership. It's not the first time. Before the terrorist attacks, Bush was widely seen as lacking, a genial caretaker with no agenda beyond cutting taxes, a likely one-termer. After 9/11, voters saw him in a different light, and Bush's handlers have worked hard to prop up the man to match the myth. "Now they're re-evaluating the re-evaluation," says a Republican strategist. "People, particularly women, are reassessing, and what looked resolute and decisive now looks wrongheaded."
<snip>

IMHO:
No amount of "propping up" is going to paper over the fact that he is (paraphrasing another good line) ALL myth and NO man.

[Mz Pip]

9. What took them so long

One of these days the Republicans have to get it that Bush is just BAD BAD BAD for the Republican Party.

If I can think of a dozen Republicans who could do a better job than Shrimpboat, so can they.

I only wish that it didn't have to get worse before more people start questioning BushCO's "leadership."

MzPip
:dem:

[opihimoimoi]

10. Its beyond Bush... The Republican Party, heavily influenced by the

Christian Coalition, Fanatical Neo Cons, is hurting America Big Time. It is they who spout bad policy and poor direction. Bush is a Puppet. and he don't even know it.

[MessiahRp]

11. Don't forget

Corporate CEO's. As much as the wingnuts and Crazy Religious fanatics play a role, the CEOs run the party and the country.

Rp