Good question

Over at Political Animal, commenter Sebastian wondered why Bush's approach to presidenting seems to have stopped working.

It strikes me that until recently, [Bush's] strategy was more or less working. Keep it simple, and keep it coming. Repeat the same boring, tired platitudes and implying that anyone who disagrees with him is going to make America weaker and more prone to terrorist attacks. Frum is probably the first conservative of note to call him on this, but what's more interesting to me is why all of the sudden this strategy isn't working for Bush. And it's readily apparent, as support for the war flags, that it isn't. Is it the Sheehan factor? I tend to doubt it. But it does make you wonder, why all the sudden, with so many in this country willing to just accept those platitudes without a second thought for so long, are we seeing the bloom come off his (bullshit) rose?

My theory: The Bush administration just does not have the people with the intelligence, skill, and charisma needed to sustain an intensive presidency over 8 years. Bush might have been tolerable (certainly less harmful) as a one-term interlude president during quiet times.

But these ain't quiet times, and virtually all of the noise has been generated by the Bush people themselves. Maybe a growing number of Americans are finally tiring of being conscripted participants in what's been revealed as a hugely dysfunctional relationship.

UPDATE: From Tom Dispatch via Big Brass Blog, a possible answer to Sebastian's question:

No one has been publicly less spontaneous or more -- effectively -- repetitious than our President; but sometimes, as he says, you "keep repeating things over and over and over again" and what sinks in really is the truth rather than the propaganda. Sometimes, just that extra bit of repetition under less than perfect circumstances, and words that once struck fear or offered hope, that once explained well enough for most the nature of the world they faced, suddenly sound hollow. They begin to sound... well, repetitious, and so, false. Your message, which worked like a dream for so long, goes off-message, and then what do you do?

This is, I suspect, exactly what growing numbers of Americans are experiencing in relation to our President. It's a mysterious process really -- like leaving a dream world or perhaps deprogramming from a cult. Once you step outside the bubble, statements that only yesterday seemed heartfelt or powerful or fearful or resolute truths suddenly look like themselves, threadbare and impoverished.