Is Bush Backfiring?

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, June 20, 2005; 11:45 AMWhen the president of the United States says jump, people jump.But with President Bush, it seems like more and more often they're jumping in the opposite direction.
Polls show that all of Bush's talk about Social Security has caught the public's attention -- except that the more they hear about his proposals, the less they like them.Bush's increasing insistence that things are going well in Iraq has been accompanied by a dramatic loss of support for the war.And the latest backfire would appear to be in Iran, in response to Bush's denunciation last week of Iranian elections as a sham.Brian Murphy writes for the Associated Press: "Iran's spy chief used just two words to respond to White House ridicule of last week's presidential election: 'Thank you.' His sarcasm was barely hidden. The backfire on Washington was more evident."The sharp barbs from President Bush were widely seen in Iran as damaging to pro-reform groups because the comments appeared to have boosted turnout among hard-liners in Friday's election -- with the result being that an ultraconservative now is in a two-way showdown for the presidency."Losing His Touch
The consensus view in the press today is clear: Bush is losing his touch.Richard W. Stevenson writes in the New York Times: "Five months after President Bush was sworn in for another four years, his political authority appears to be ebbing, both within his own party, where members of Congress are increasingly if sporadically going their own way, and among Democrats, who have discovered that they pay little or no price for defying him. . . ."The cumulative effect of his difficulties in the last few months has been to pierce the sense of dominance that he sought to project after his re-election and to heighten concerns among Republicans in Congress that voters will hold them, as the party in power, responsible for failure to address the issues of most concern to the public."Steve Holland writes for Reuters: "Five months after starting his second term with high hopes, President Bush is struggling to regain the confidence of Americans concerned about the direction of the Iraq war and the U.S. economy."Marc Sandalow writes in the San Francisco Chronicle: "Bloggers are circulating articles of impeachment. Democrats are demanding an exit strategy from Iraq. And even a few Republicans are openly questioning President Bush's execution of the war on terror.