If you don't follow politics and aren't at the top of the game, then the Bush Administration's actions can easily be forgiven for being overshadowed by the drubbing that they are getting via words from the news media.
But the news media, like the modern Democrats, don't know their Bre'r Rabbit.
Bre'r Fox finally caught Bre'r Rabbit with the Tar Baby, you see. The more that Bre'r Rabbit attacked the Tar Baby, the more stuck he became, which mad him madder, which caused him to attack the Tar Baby ever more wildly until finally he was helpless.
Likewise, the Democrats and the News Media are attacking President Bush, per Karl Rove's plan. The Democrats and the News Media haven't figured out yet that President Bush can't run for office again in 2008. Nor do they know their Bre'r Rabbit.
So off they go bashing Rove's tar baby. Each day there is a mandatory anti-Bush article in every major newspaper. Mandatory. Ditto for the news coverage on TV.
None of which touches Allen or McCain or Giuliani or Jeb or any other major GOP candidate for 2008.
Of course, while effective, this strategy has a cost...and that cost is what has loyal GOP'ers howling...in that we have to sit around and take lots of news media hits without returning much fire.
We're being hurt by words.
In exchange, we're winning tax cuts, Hussein is in jail, we've passed lawsuit immunity for our firearms manufacturers, banned partial birth abortion, changed the makeup of the SCOTUS, reformed bankruptcy law, passed CAFTA, killed Kyoto, deployed land, sea, and air national missile defenses, as well as expanded oil drilling in Alaska (e.g. opened the Arctic Petroleum Reserve already and soon will open ANWR, too).
If you keep a scorecard of actions, then the GOP is way ahead. If you track only the tone of the news media, then the GOP is way behind.
In the meantime, the Democrats are becoming unhinged while the GOP is getting what we want passed into law.