Deficit Attention Disorder

President Bush is getting thumped by everyone these days. That the Democrats cannot find anything good to say is not surprising. But nowadays it is becoming chic for the conservative talk hosts to break with the party line.

A few months ago they would have been roundly criticized by their own for giving aid and sucor to the enemy (Lefties). Now that lockstep thinking is falling apart. The widening gyre of public opinion seems to be skewing against the party in power.

There is a general feeling of "They can't get the job done." This applies to a multitude of topics, from closing our borders to illegal immigration, to disaster relief, to Iraq, North Korea, Africa, space, etc. The daily news is a constant reminder of how poorly things are going in our diplomatic relations and foreign policy.

Today Jeff Jacoby, the Boston Globes's pet conservative, wrote one of his best columns - which took the Republican-dominated governemnt to task for helping Bush blow the reality lid off of national spending. What happened to the Republican reverence for small government? Jacoby notes that the unrestained, unbalanced power of Republicans in congress and in the white house has resulted in the corruption and arrogance that lets them add 6,000 pork addendums to a recent highway bill.

This is not Haiti; this is the US Congress.

Clear thinkers on the Conservative bench are beginning to realize that this failure to live-up to traditional Republican values has shown the incumbants to be the same hacks and whores that they decry. And the voting public might just hold the Bush administration responsible. This could the way for a smart well-funded contender in 2008 who can easily demonstrate that she could not be any worse than the rascals who drove the deficit up by trillions of dollars.

This scares the hell out of them.