Bush: no longer credible

* frank richs latest has been pilfered here. he ends: "The facts the American people are listening to at this point come not from an administration that they no longer find credible, but from the far more reality-based theater of war."

* laura has more on the collapsing narrative of the egadministration:

"So if you're a Republican and you want to feel good about this country (and with 70% of the public feeling that the country is going in the wrong direction, plenty of Republicans are feeling crappy about the country and this presidency too), who's going to appeal to you? The war hero talking about how torture hurts this country's image and the important work it's trying to do in Iraq? Or the guys trying to advocate for the torture exemption and whining about the war critics and sounding defensive and suspect about the Fitzgerald investigation and the Senate intelligence investigation? In a fundamental way, if the last rationale for being in Iraq the Bush administration is standing on is that the US is doing something noble by bringing democracy to the Middle East, then being so visibly for torture just kills them. It just collapses the entire narrative. Most people just can't hold that contradiction in their heads. Especially with a patriotic war hero on TV explaining why torture is bad for US national security, prestige, and US troops who might be captured by the enemy, like he was. Esp. when that figure has none of the Katrina/Fitzgerald/Rove/Miers/torture/Iraq/Cheney/Rumsfeld baggage that Bush does, and when they think to themselves, wouldn't it be great if this guy was commander in chief, instead of these Bush buffoons? (And plenty of Republicans have confided this stray thought, and how tired they are of having to defend these guys. You know in your heart of hearts that Bill Kristol is tired of it too, that he's just going through the motions and the Bushies are still never going to consider him loyal for having once supported McCain.) Frankly, politics being politics, it seems it's only a matter of time before plenty of the Republican elite and its publications abandon this sinking ship, its failed Iraq non-strategy and its troubled ethics, and exude open enthusiasm for a more hopeful, positive alternative."

"And on the Sunday talk shows tomorrow, Rockefeller v. Roberts on Fox, Levin v. Roberts, and Hadley and Chalabi (same team?) on CNN's Late Edition, etc."

torture and coverups are the stories of th mo'