'œThis might be the most inept administration in American history.' What shocked me about this statement when I heard it last week, said James Klurfeld in Newsday, was not its content'”the left has been calling George Bush incompetent since he was governor of Texas'”but its source: a high-ranking and 'œhard-line' Republican. As even his supporters have come to doubt his judgment, the Bush presidency is 'œcoming unraveled before our eyes.' A long winter of mishandled crises has sent Bush's approval ratings plummeting to a Nixonian 34 percent. The war in Iraq isn't close to being over, despite almost three years of fighting, $300 billion, and more than 2,100 American lives. A just-released videotape shows 'œa detached' Bush at a briefing the day before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, listening passively to dire warnings, and asking no questions. For conservatives, the final straw may have been Bush's support for the takeover of six U.S. ports by a firm based in Dubai, said Byron York in The New Republic. That wildly unpopular deal has enabled Democrats to position themselves as tougher on national security than the GOP. Republicans are not only 'œfurious.' They're 'œfrightened.'
They should be, said Alan Abramowitz in The Washington Post. Whenever they hit rough waters in the past, Bush and Karl Rove always relied on the cynical strategy of polarizing the nation; if the public was split down the middle, they could be assured that at least half the voters were on their side. But 'œcompetence is not a partisan issue,' and both Republicans and Democrats want a president capable of doing the job. In recent months, the public has come to feel that 'œno one is really in charge in the Bush White House''”and the Dubai Ports World debacle only strengthened that impression. To the chagrin of Republican loyalists, the White House admitted that Bush 'œdidn't even know about the deal' until it appeared in the newspapers. Bush's poll numbers may look similar to those of Nixon, but the president he is really starting to resemble is Jimmy Carter, whose political fate was sealed once the public 'œstarted to perceive him as in over his head in the Oval Office.'
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