I'm no fan of rip out your throat partisan politics but it appears that Bush has laid back too much in his effort to set the new tone in DC. I think he, and perhaps most of the GOP, still don't understand how far the Dems and MSM will go to attack them.
As for the war the GOP has over 10yrs of Dem qoutes and documents to make them look very bad o this issue. The GOP will need to pound this home to have any chance in the '06 elections.

The administration's mantra during the 2002 and 04 cycles were that most people don't pay attention to the campaigns until after Labor Day, which would explain the lack of partisanship at other times. With most of the big media outlets in opposition, going the partisan route 24/7/365 leaves you vunerable to the old "mean spirited/angry white male" charge that the GOP faced during the Clinton years.

That said, the effects of outside events like Katrina and the absense of DeLay to herd the cats in the House have made it almost a necessity that the administration go into a more proactive mode now, as opposed to waiting until next year. Bush 41 made the mistake of thinking his actions post-Gulf War I wouldn't be spun in the least favorable light in the run-up to the 1992 vote, and that left him dead in the water by the beginning of summer that year.

John:

Tax hikes were all that mattered in 41's loss.

OJ --

Tax hikes were the catalyst that allowed the other allegations by the Democrats and the big media outlets -- such as the economy being at its worst point since Hoover -- to gain traction. The tax hikes were what alienated the base from GHWB, and allowed the later bogus claims to circulate with only a half-hearted effort on the right to counter them.

Since the pundit class on the right got its court nominee, I'm assuming we aren't going to have a repeate of that half-heartedness in 2006. But Bush does need to keep at the issue to keep his base motivated.

Yes, without the tax hike he wins in '92 and reaps the recovery, making him an above average president.

The reporting of Bush's speech has been breathtaking in its disingenuousness. He waited far, far too long to do this, and it looks like it's probably far too late. It's become an established "fact" that BushLied, so instead of portraying his speech as a long-overdue refutation of that nonsense, it is being described as a hyper-partisan attack on the "patriotism" of his critics (because you can't refute a fact, of course...). Incredible.

B - maybe. And maybe the blogs vision that they have supplanted the MSM as the dominant news source/driver is inaccurate.

The speech, along with Miers out/Alito in, has at least gotten Bush supporters back with him instead of shooting at him.

If Frist has the nerve to put Joe Wilson under oath, then this will all go away. There's a reason Kerry dropped him from the campaign as soon as the Intelligence Committee's first report was made public. The sight of ol' Joe (and his wife) taking the Fifth for an entire day will stop this nonsense once and for all. But will it happen?

ratbert. The question is why won't it happen? I didn't think anyone could be worse than Dole and Lott, but I was wrong. Frist is a disaster. Why is Bush allowing him to continue his non-leadership in the senate? No one can seriously think he's presidential material.

The Dems would have the GOP equivalent of Joe Wilson under the lights PDQ. Even MacArthur was "allowed" to testify when he returned from Korea in April 1951, and he was pretty much exposed as out to lunch. Perhaps Bush and Co. are just waiting for the shrillest possible moment to pull the rug out from under Reid and Joe Wilson (and the press), but that seems like a false hope.

Frist is a doctor and a businessman, not an infighter or an ideologue. Dole or Howard Baker would never have let the Senate get this screwed up, because they knew how to flatter (and muscle) the moderates and keep the conservative base out front when it wanted to be.