[pickrell]

"..Well, the reason I have always given for letting Bush get away with these questionable activities is that he needed to do it in order to get the really important things done, like making good judicial appointments. That was my bottom line. Now that he has nominated a doubtfully conservative, undistinguished and almost unknown second-rater for the Supreme Court, it puts everything else into question too. We all paid a lot one way or another to get to this point, and we don't appreciate getting kicked in the teeth just as the goal is within reach..."

The above statement may be the most accurate summation of the state of the party base that I have heard yet. The only improvement possible would be to add to the first sentence the additional task of winning the war on terrorism. Well stated, Cicero...

[Cicero]

Thank you. I agree that the War on Terror is another top priority. The court is still out on how Bush will measure up to that. He started out splendidly, and he has continued to do good work in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I'm a bit nervous about his waiting so long for the obvious next moves of dealing with Syria and Iran.

I have been willing to wait for what he considers the right moment, as long as he keeps my trust. But the way things have been going for the past few weeks I am less sure than I was that that such trust is justified.

Moreover, Bush can't press forward with the War on Terror unless he has support, and I'm afraid he has damaged that support and confidence needlessly. Not the damage from Katrina, which was nothing but media lies that will fade away, but the Miers provocation, which is his own doing and which will not fade away at all if he doesn't change course very soon.