Blasting Bush

Today's New York Times editorial:

We can't think of a president who has gone to the American people more often than George W. Bush has to ask them to forget about things like democracy, judicial process and the balance of powers — and just trust him. We also can't think of a president who has deserved that trust less...

It just gets better from there on. Is Sulzberger still a "hands-on" publisher?

And it's not just the NYT bashing Bush. As I said last week, fellow GOP-ers are also taking swings. Even the right-wing media are grumbling:

Commentator Jonah Goldberg, miffed that Bush has piled up record deficits and boosted the size of government, writes that Bush "is spending money like a pimp with a week to live." Another, Fox News analyst Tony Snow, says that Bush's decision to shelve his Social Security privatization plan is "an act of surrender."

So are the GOP grass-roots, or what's left of them (presumably the die-hard white supremacists):

Within the grass roots, there is great hostility toward Bush's "guest worker" plan, which would allow illegal immigrants to stay in America for three years. Many conservatives dismiss that plan as a backdoor amnesty and an invitation to terrorist infiltration; Bush's big-business allies like the plan, because they see the illegals as cheap labor...

There's a big conservative faction that thinks Bush is wrong for believing he can bring peaceful democracy to Iraq and the rest of the Middle East (case in point: Palestinians have chosen Hamas)...

There's a conservative faction that believes Bush is wrong to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans...

There's a big conservative faction that is alarmed about Jack Abramoff...

And, maybe most importantly, there is an outcry over Bush's big spending and record deficits...

Little wonder then, particularly after another dismal week of bad news on all fronts, Bush's poll ratings are still comatose. This cartoon (from Anthony Lowenstein via Acerbic Politics) captures the moment in history: