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I'll ask succinctly, and I hope to get a succinct answer...Is this legislation good or bad?

Bad, but I can understand the administrations position. This is a time bomb waiting to go off 2 months before an election, by taking this position the administration shields itself from the bombardment of the mainstream press ready to pounce and shout, "Bush hostage to gun lobby".

Like I said before, the place to kill this legislation is in the House, where 2nd Amendment issues actually can make or break elctions.

Bad, but Bad, but I can understand the administrations position.
What is their to understand in "the administrations position"?
This is a time bomb waiting to go off 2 months before an election, by taking this position the administration shields itself from the bombardment of the mainstream press ready to pounce and shout, "Bush hostage to gun lobby".
Is that what you're calling "the administrations position"?
Would you rather the non-mainstream press, which has far more influence than the mainstream press after years of their shoddy work, shout "Bush hostage to gun control lobby"? Looks to me that that is what is happening, and rightly so.

You're all too aware of the incremental approaches of the Socialists (you've even used that as an argument against me basically calling me what I abhor) yet you shrug this off with your "but" position.
You know this is bad legislation and you know it is going to lose GWB votes if he renews the ban, but you and others are willing to hand over our political birthright for a mere four years in a game of political expediency!
I'm sorry, but I simply don't understand that way of thinking.

Like I said before, the place to kill this legislation is in the House, where 2nd Amendment issues actually can make or break elctions.
And you know damned good and well that 2nd Amendment issues can make or break Presidential elections too.
2000 showed that all too well or else all of those Dem voters wouldn't have left Gore standing in the breeze with his wet finger and perplexed expression.
You keep trying to pass this off onto the House when they are the very ones who voted for it in the first place! How is anyone supposed to make them rescind something they've already passed. Nothing gets rescinded anymore. To have a sunset provision in that ban was a miracle to start with. It was simply placation!

This is a time bomb waiting to go off 2 months before an election, by taking this position the administration shields itself from the bombardment of the mainstream press ready to pounce and shout, "Bush hostage to gun lobby".

You make it sound like the "gun lobby" is nothing more than a bunch of drunk militia guys up in Montana.

There are more than 5 million registered members of the "gun lobby" who are members of a pro-gun Rights group, such as the NRA. This is larger than any other group except maybe the AARP. There are also 80 million gun owners (i.e., potential votes) out there.

For any politician to disregard these voters suggests they are either a fool or a tyrant.

Furthermore, if any candidate (especially one with a supposed 70% approval rating) is too weak to stand up to media critisicms, then that candidate should be challenged in the primary by someone who isn't a spineless weakling.

Like I said before, the place to kill this legislation is in the House, where 2nd Amendment issues actually can make or break elctions.

The problem is that by coming out in support of the renewal of the ban, the President has made the task of killing it in the House much, much more difficult. If he'd just said, "I need to wait and see the bill before I decide to sign it or not", that problem would be much less. It wouldn't be as good as him saying he wouldn't sign the bill in terms of getting it killed in the house, but that action would result, as you say, in him being demonized by the gun grabber press, which is most of it. He should have kept his mouth shut, or more properly, told his people to keep their mouths shut.