Sure, Laz, but this rope-a-dope thing has helped to crystalize opposition to President Bush as weak and ineffectual. This has hurt the war effort and made him begin his rebuilding from a much lower point than otherwise.
I don't think that rope-a-dope should be the only response that the Republicans can ever make. Sometimes they should punch back hard, and fast.
"Rope a dope". Yea, right. If this was such a great strategy why didn't Bush pull it out during the '04 campaign? Seems to me Bush played a very bad hand and only managed to win by winning Ohio by 100,000 votes.