Forecast for Crawford: High in the Mid-30's

The latest set of Bush polls have approvals in the 30s.

A pathetic tour of Latin America has not helped. The failure and corruption here is deep and layered, foreign and domestic, character and policy, leadership and honesty, a real lasagna of incompetence. I considered listing the disasters again but by the time I was finished my laptop would be obsolete.

Wing nuts are looking for him to turn it around. It's unlikely to happen. Ordinary conservatives love the illusion of character, competence, and predictability. That is broken. The basis for a recovery, outside of extraordinary circumstance, does not now exist. Bush rolled a lot of balls of shit up the hill and now he's stuck in the valley below.

I have a sense of relief. Conservatives like Bob Dole (remember Bob Dole?), who I disagreed with on virtually everything, did not take on an imperial overreach, did not set the nation on a course that might easily end in neo-fascism, did not indifferently degrade and erode ancient guarantees of liberty. Bush's political failure might just save our hash as a great republic. Doubters in his own party now have a voice and an effect, and it's looking more like the managed stumbling chaos of actual democracy.

I believe in Napoleon's principle that when your opponent is destroying himself, do not distract him, but this leaves us with how fix the nation that Bush drove into the ditch. Another poll -comparing the parties -is remarkable: Americans strongly favor the Democratic Party on many measures, except for the critical failing of perceived leadership. We need - and sorely lack- rock stars.

The Bush presidency has failed. The frat party is over. But the hangover has three years to run.