Fred Kaplan makes the point: where have these GOP critics been with their insightful, harsh words? To come out now, Johnny come lately, translates into much less purposeful effect and is a bit like the cowardly boy who kicks the bully once he's been pummeled by a fed-up gang. The numerous failures of Bush are not suddenly evident but rather have been readily apparent for quite some time. To not acknowledge this point is to simply admit to being overly influenced by partisan rhetoric and to be in denial of reality (i.e. drinking the Roveian Kool-Aid).

Shame on these late-to-the-party, bandwagon GW bashers. Now that their clown/tool is down for the count it's very easy to jump ship, esp. since he's the lamest of ducks. Some say with Miers withdrawing that GW may regain some backers, as if they're willing to give him a second chance. Fine, let it happen, but the cards have been dealt and the smart ones will continue to look for convenient excuses allowing them to flee this loser with some dignity/face.

As for the others, if they truly believe winning in '08 will require that they stay the course with GW, I say go for it! Just like they believed with Newt in the '90s. You think you can go to the well one more time by scaring the public with 9/11 imagery to win votes? Fool me once, fool me twice, but three times? Who knows with this voting public but I like to think they've finally come to their senses and realize that we can do MUCH better than this guy in office.

The wingnuts love to harken back to this past election, as if frozen in time, when they had the smear campaigns at full blast and gay marriage used as a Blair Witch scare tactic. They're very good at such things to gain votes ("win at all costs"). But over the last several months, removed from the pre-election hysteria and thus without the benefit of $$-backed orchestrated smears and lies, GW's poll numbers have gone steadily down. What will cause them to go back up? I haven't a clue. And again, many of the brighter Republicans realize this also and will shrewdly venture away from GW and his corrupt, failed cabal. In effect, the party will splinter.

As I predicted in January, the GOP is imploding and once an implosion starts it's very difficult to stop.

UPDATE: Today's Washington Post reminds that Bush was down once before in '01 but 9-11 helped to reverse his fate. Uh, big difference now in that 1) can he depend on another 9-11 type incident?, and 2) then he wasn't lame duck; fellow GOPers had to play ball.