In fact, given the perilously frivolous tendencies of the political press corps, it almost certainly won't. But Joe Conason's Salon.com piece on Bush's worst week (04/20/04) does provide a glimpse of how the Bush team's flaws are painfully hard to ignore right now:
As a nonpartisan campaign finance expert told the Los Angeles Times, the Bush-Cheney media expenditures to date equal what previous presidential candidates laid out for an entire campaign cycle. And yet the effort to "define" Kerry hasn't improved Bush's image. Although the Republican treasury is far from exhausted, money alone will not undo the damage inflicted by the administration's lethal incompetence.
Caught in a maelstrom of negative news cycles, the Bush strategists have been unable to elevate him above the growing din of doubt. The national press corps that has indulged and coddled him all along is no longer averting its gaze from embarrassing facts. And with its loss of control over the "message" emanating from Washington, Baghdad and points around the globe, the White House is on the defensive with no immediate relief on the horizon.
The press corps will soon revert to their customary reverence for Bush the Magnificent. But hopefully the Democrats will remember that focusing on the Administration's very real problems in governance resonates with the public.
Conason also makes an important point about how the "weapons of mass destruction" turning out to be non-existent in Iraq is affecting the political process in a somewhat indirect way: "If the political impact was not immediate, its corrosive effect on his administration's credibility is unmistakable."
He's also correct in pointing out that it's hard for Bush and his crew to fully evade responsibility for the fact that "young Americans are losing their lives and limbs without prospect of victory" in the Iraq War.
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