WITH the nomination of Harriet Miers, FEMA’s absence in New Orleans, the galloping incontinence of the federal budget, and the continuing insurgency in Iraq, President Bush has seemingly entered a time of troubles. His opinion-poll ratings are falling and there are faint signs that Republican congressmen are distancing themselves from him in preparation for the November 2006 elections. The specter of a failed presidency looms.
George W. Bush has presented himself as a strong and principled conservative. Mutual enemies such as conservatives and the media originally accepted his self-portraiture, but conservatives now complain that over-spending, federalizing emergency services, and another Souter is not what they voted for. They cry treason or at least timidity. Is Bush now letting the conservative side down? And does he deserve its criticism and even hostility?
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