"...and President Bush's private
mood has blackened accordingly."

From the New York Daily News via AlterNet:

First Lady Laura Bush, who is even more in demand than her husband on the political stump this cycle, also was telling aides she thought the tide had finally turned.

Now, however, friends, aides and close political allies tell the Daily News Bush is furious with his own side for helping create a political downdraft that has blunted his momentum and endangered GOP prospects for keeping control of Congress next month.

Some of his anger is directed at former aides who helped Watergate journalist Bob Woodward paint a lurid portrait of a dysfunctional, chaotic administration in his new book, "State of Denial."

In the obsessively private Bush clan, talking out of school is the ultimate act of disloyalty, and Bush feels betrayed from within.

And

Bush has complained, these sources said, that the scandal torpedoes furious GOP efforts to reenergize a dispirited political base - especially Christian conservatives.

"There's steam coming out of his ears over the Foley thing," someone who talks to the President regularly said. "The base is starting to get turned off again."

Click here for the rest.

It's hard for me to get past the Bush archetype in my brain, you know, the one established fairly early on in his first administration, after 9/11: the guy who doesn't read newspapers, who's seemingly invulnerable to criticism, if only because he's too stupid or oblivious to understand. But that storyline comes from years ago. What's been happening in his primate skull since the war in Iraq turned sour? How's he really been dealing with the bashing he took after FEMA's failure in the wake of Hurricane Katrina? Haven't his chronically bad approval ratings rattled him a bit? I'm afraid that most people really don't know.

I've heard rumors that he's started drinking again, always a very bad thing for a recovering alcoholic to do. Personally, I think Bush should start boning up on Louis XVI's final days; maybe he'll find some enlightening info.

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