Is Bush Worn Out?

Listening to Dick Morris last night I began to wonder what exactly is wrong with George Bush.

He ran a really terrific campaign to defeat John Kerry in the 2004 election. The war was not going well in Iraq, the economy was showing signs of a comeback although the jobs numbers were not great and he had a vicious press beating up on him relentlessly yet he managed to pull off a decisive victory.

Maybe he was a bit too cocky after the election boldly claiming a mandate and launching into the historically dangerous areas of SS reform. When he could not accomplish the sweeping changes he sought, the wind seemed to go out of his sails. Considering that no President has accomplished this since it's inception (most never even attempted it) he should have accepted this defeat as the likely outcome.

From that time on Bush and his PR corps have steadily been buffetted by the prevailing tides rather than maintaining at least a partial contol of them. They are behind the curve on almost every issue and their plan of action seems to be that of assuming only a posture of defense and deflection.

The few times he has gone on offense, ie. disputing the NSA wiretapping issue and the "He lied us into war" canard, he has benefitted greatly. Unfortunately he has only done this as a last resort and when there was no other choice but to do so. Morris said last night that Clinton did this constantly 24/7 and it was the only thing that kept his numbers up. If he had operated as Bush is presently, the impeachment and subsequent removal from office likely would have been successful.

Allowing himself to get pummelled for so long on the Iraq war, then Katrina and a host of smaller issues, this President has allowed himself to become politically weakened. He didn't spend his political capitol, he passively let it to be stolen from him.The latest political screwup was the DPW deal. Any political advisor worth his salt would have perceived the potential danger of this and councelled Bush to speak with the UAE months ago about withdrawing the US ports portion of the deal and have offered "private incentives" and stipens in exchange for it. We would have both been happy and no one would have been the wiser. As it turned out neither party came out smelling very good.

So, to get back to my initial question, what's wrong with Bush? Is this docile almost submissive attitude a result of complete incompetence on the part of his PR people or a symptom of a 2nd term President who is tired of fighting the odds and is essentially burned out. We better hope it's the former because that can be fixed. If it's the latter we are all in for a very long and painful 3 more years