Maybe it’s just that liberal media screwing with me, but Republicans certainly seem on the defensive these days.
Let’s start with the Bush administration. At home, there’s, the Valerie Plame affair which, worse than Watergate, is getting the full scandal treatment. Abroad, the administration is failing afresh in Iraq and North Korea, just as Americans express doubts about the president’s leadership.
Even George Will and Rove mouthpiece Robert Novak and are making their displeasure with the administration known.
Ah-nold Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, is grappling with that election’s October surprise. Surprise: he’s a boob-grabber. But unlike Bush, who could have cut loose his offender and stopped the Plame scandal cold, Arnold played it smart. Rather than face scandalous headlines from here through his first term, Schwarzenegger readily acknowledged the accusations within the same news cycle. Instead of proliferating Arnold The Mysogynist headlines, the papers read I’ve been a bad boy, and I’m sorry. There: Besides some residual punditry, the scandal is defanged and time-limited. You have to admire the strategery of it all.
Then, of course, there’s Republican arch-pundit and compulsive pill-popper Rush Limbaugh, who lost his dream gig because he couldn’t keep his despicable politicsout of his sports commentary. Looks like somebody quickly found out that football fans aren’t ditto-heads.
Nope, no Democrats to blame for that one, either. From here, it looks like the Republicans are on the ropes, and through no one’s fault but their own.