BUSH NEEDS HIS OWN "LONG NIGHT OF THE SOUL"

Howard Fineman summarizes all the president's troubles.

The drama on the floor was a shabby—at times, farcical—finale to a season that nevertheless had produced something serious: a transformation of the politics of the war in Washington. Some of the change had little to do with the war per se. From the bungling of Katrina disaster relief to the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, the White House had faced a run of bad news that would buckle support for any of the president's policies. But as they watched the continued deadly attacks by Sunni insurgents—and the continued erosion of Bush's numbers as a war leader and honest man—Democrats were encouraged to up the ante in Congress.
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But it's unclear how calling Democrats hypocrites will help revive Bush's personal reputation. Rather than undermine Bush's foes, the strategy seems unlikely to do more than remind voters of the undeniable fact that the WMD simply weren't there. And to make their case at all, White House strategists have been forced to use a tactic they studiously avoided in the campaign: deploying Bush himself as the attack dog.
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They recently dispatched one of their best operatives, Steve Schmidt (no relation to the Ohio congresswoman), to Baghdad to look for ways generate positive press. His answer: build better relations with the reporters. But they may be preoccupied these days by the need to dodge terrorist attacks on their hotels.

Tags: Congress, Iraq War, Bush