The harder they fall

Ouch:

For the first time, more people say George W. Bush's presidency will be judged as unsuccessful than say it will be seen as a success, a poll finds.

Forty-one percent of respondents said Bush's presidency will be seen as unsuccessful in the long run, while 26 percent said the opposite. Thirty-five percent said it was too early to tell, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

In January, 36 percent said successful and 27 percent said unsuccessful.

The increasing pessimism about Bush's long-term prospects comes at a time when many polls have found the public increasingly is negative about Bush's performance and the direction of the country.

Seven in 10 said they want the next president to offer policies and programs that are different from the Bush administration's.

Only half said they wanted the next president to offer different policies in 2000, at the end of the Clinton presidency. By a 2-1 margin, people said the Bush administration has had a negative impact on politics and the way government works.

People were inclined to say Bush's policies have made things worse on a wide range of issues such as the federal budget deficit, the gap between rich and poor, health care, the economy, relations with U.S. allies, the tax system and education. By 47 percent to 30 percent, those surveyed said Bush has improved the situation with national security.

Republicans give the president mixed reviews in many of these areas. Almost half of Republicans said Bush's policies have made the deficit worse and just 12 percent say he has improved that situation.

Add these dismal numbers to the fact that despite the Administration's trotting out of its black cabinet members and C-Plus Caligula's annoying habit of patting little brown-skinned children on the head, Bush's approval rating among African-Americans is an almost unfathomably dismal 2%, and you have a collapse far worse than the Mets' September Swoon. This isn't your garden-variety second-term jinx; this is a collective national press/citizenry wakeup from one hell of a bender with a really nasty hangover -- and a lot of rage.

Yesterday's appalling lapse which exposed the rigidly scripted nature of Bush's "unscripted" conference call with soldiers in Iraq seemed less an "accident" than a deliberate act by a staffer who has had just about enough. There was a time when the "rehearsal" for one of Bush's Bullshit from the Bubble sessions would NEVER have been permitted to go out over the airwaves. Is it simply a matter that without Karl Rove devoting himself to the message 24 x 7, the entire house of cards falls apart? Or are we starting to see some passive/aggressive behavior now by a dispirited White House staff tired of propping up a mean-spirited moron?