Kristof in yesterday's NY Times:

President Bush now has a public approval rating that is 33 percentage points lower than President Clinton's was at the time he was impeached.

[In 1987] Mr. Reagan systematically overhauled his presidency....his approval rating rose from 40 percent in 1987 to 64 percent when he left office.

....But Mr. Bush today is not retooling; he's hunkering down in the bunker. Instead of the Reagan approach of 1987, it's the Nixon approach of 1973. It just increases the national polarization and doesn't help Mr. Bush.

That symbol of tolerance and reason, Sen. Orrin Hatch, recently stated, "Nobody denies that he [Saddam Hussein] was supporting al-Qaida. Well, I shouldn't say nobody. Nobody with brains." According to the WSJ, 59% of Americans do not believe this Cheney-manufactured lie anymore -- so I guess they're brain-dead. As are the folks on the 9/11 Commission.

Bush's "Portgate" is quite odd. He doesn't use his veto in 5+ years in office but for some reason this matter is when he throws down the gauntlet and declares he'll finally use it....? There's more to this story than meets the eye.

That said, the most interesting aspect is the extent to which it shows how much "political capital" GW has lost. Heck, even Bill Frist (!) has come out against Bush -- what next?

Kevin Drum writes:

What it shows is that Bush still doesn't understand how much influence he's recently lost with his conservative base. In the brave new post-Harriet, post-Katrina world, outrage over the port deal has been driven equally by both liberal critics and conservatives like Michelle Malkin and administration uber-stalwart Hugh Hewitt, who are no longer willing to simply take Bush's word for it that they should trust him on this issue. For today's chastened conservatives, it's "trust but verify" when it comes to the Bush administration....Bush is a dead man walking these days, and the UAE port deal shows that he still doesn't quite get this.