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Contrary to what his campaign seemed to promise in 2000, Bush has governed as a radical, taking Reaganite ideas to their logical conclusion and beyond. Except for the shocking attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush might not have garnered the patriotic backing that earned him public approval that, in the short run, exceeded what his father enjoyed after the Gulf war and later remained just high enough to win him a second term. Over the painful years since then, his manifest failures have led him to suffer through the longest run of public disapproval yet recorded for any president. Repeatedly, the Bush administration has exposed the exhaustion of Reaganism. The debacle in Iraq has challenged conservatives' claims to superior wisdom in foreign and military affairs, which for decades has been their prime claim to competence. The turn to regressive tax cuts has helped create monster deficits. Other disasters, above all the government's handling of Hurricane Katrina, exposed the dark consequences of small-government dogma. The Terri Schiavo affair, as well as some spectacular sex scandals, galvanized the public's revulsion at the hypocrisy of the religious right. The uncovering of massive corruption at the party's highest levels, notably in the Jack Abramoff case, prompted even Republicans to wonder if the GOP had been in power too long.......................
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