I used to think so to but have come to the conclusion that it wouldn't have mattered. The story would have simply shifted from Bush's failed policies to Bush's attempt to convince the public that his failed policies aren't failures.
My bigger problem with Bush and Conservatives in general is how they allow the Moderate Pubbies and Libs to use terms like "the rich", "the middle class", "working families", "torture", and the list goes on and on, without demanding a definition.
The biggest problem the Pubbies have is allowing Dems to frame the debate with incorrect assumptions (the rich will hold on to their "tax cut", Muslim crazy a$$ fundamentalists would never work with secularists, etc, etc) and undefined terms like the ones listed above.
The Conservatives must today begin to reestablish the parameters and retake the language. Challenge the assumptions, their "fact" and seriously questions the analysis, which is usually just about as shallow as standing water after a summer shower.
#139, I agree with your conclusions for the most part,but until the New Media takes over the DBM completely we have to struggle to get the truth out there.
The Dems haven't been framing the debate, the driveby media has. Then again, the DBM has become so partisan that they might as well BE the Dems.
Still, we all say the Republicans are not doing enough of this, or their opponets are doing that, when in reality the supposedly non-partisan Fourth Estate have become the arbitrators of what is or isn't newsworthy, the judges of what is or isn't partisan, and the jury on the rightness and wrongness of political thought.
The media has taken a side and because of this they are not accurately, fairly, nor objectively reporting what is happening.