From The Washington Post, 8/20/06:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/19/AR2006081900568.html

Pundits Renounce The President

Among Conservative Voices, Discord

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, August 20, 2006; Page A04


For 10 minutes, the talk show host grilled his guests about whether
"George Bush's mental weakness is damaging America's credibility at
home and abroad."

For 10 minutes, the caption across the bottom of the television screen
read, "IS BUSH AN 'IDIOT'?"

But the host was no liberal media elitist.

It was Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman turned MSNBC
political pundit.

And his answer to the captioned question was hardly "no."

While other presidents have been called stupid, Scarborough said:

"I think George Bush is in a league by himself. I don't think he has
the intellectual depth as these other people."

These have been tough days politically for President Bush, what with
his popularity numbers mired in the 30s and Republican candidates
distancing themselves as elections near.

He can no longer even rely as much on once-friendly voices in the
conservative media to stand by his side, as some columnists and
television commentators lose faith in his leadership and lose heart in
the war in Iraq.

While most conservative media figures have not abandoned Bush,
influential opinion-makers increasingly have raised questions,
expressed doubts or attacked the president outright, particularly on
foreign policy, on which he has long enjoyed their strongest support.

In some cases, they have complained that Bush has drifted away from
their shared principles; in other cases, they think it is the
implementation that has fallen short.

In most instances, Iraq figures prominently.

"Conservatives for a long time were in protective mode, wanting to
emphasize the progress in Iraq to contrast what they felt was an
unfair attack on the war by the Democrats and media and other
sources," Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, said in an
interview.

"But there's more of a sense now that things are on a downward
trajectory, and more of a willingness to acknowledge it and pressure
the administration to react to it."

Lowry's magazine offers a powerful example.

"It is time to say it unequivocally: We are winning in Iraq," Lowry
wrote in April 2005, chastising those who disagreed.

This month, he published an editorial that concluded that "success in
Iraq seems more out of reach than it has at any time since the initial
invasion three years ago" and assailed "the administration's
on-again-off-again approach to Iraq."

"It is time for the Bush administration to acknowledge that its
approach of assuring people that progress is being made and operating
on that optimistic basis in Iraq isn't working," the editorial said.

Lowry followed up days later in his own column, suggesting that the
United States is "losing, or at least not obviously winning, a major
war" and asking whether Iraq is "Bush's Vietnam."

Quin Hillyer, executive editor of the American Spectator, cited
Lowry's column in his own last week, writing that many are upset
"because we seem not to be winning" and urging the White House to take
on militia leaders such as Moqtada al-Sadr.

Until it does, he said, "there will be no way for the administration
to credibly claim that victory in Iraq is achievable, much less
imminent."

Bush aides were bothered by a George F. Will column last week mocking
neoconservative desires to transform the Middle East:

"Foreign policy 'realists' considered Middle East stability the goal.
The realists' critics, who regard realism as reprehensibly
unambitious, considered stability the problem. That problem has been
solved."

The White House responded with a 2,432-word rebuttal -- three times as
long as the column -- e-mailed to supporters and journalists.

"Mr. Will's kind of 'stability' and 'realism' -- a kind of world-weary
belief that nothing can be done and so nothing should be tried --
would eventually lead to death and destruction on a scale that is
almost unimaginable," wrote White House strategic initiatives director
Peter H. Wehner.

Bush advisers said that they never counted Will or some others now
voicing criticism as strong supporters but that the president's
political weakness has encouraged soft supporters and quiet skeptics
to speak out.

William F. Buckley Jr., the founder of the National Review and an icon
of the Ronald Reagan-era conservative movement, caused a stir earlier
this year when he wrote that "our mission has failed" in Iraq -- just
a few months after Bush hosted a White House tribute to Buckley's 80th
birthday and the magazine's 50th anniversary.

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Nothin' ta see here, folks, just cowardly rightards scramblin' to dive
off their moron leader's sinking ship.

Harry