The numbers are against Bush now, or: They can't Swift Boat everybody

At The Huffington Post, Andrew Foster Altschul admits I Was Wrong About Bush following the twin horrors of Bush's Veterans Day speech and Karl Rove's judge-bashing speech at the Federalist Society.

Clearly, there will be no turn toward the center. There will be no contrition, no reaching out, no soul searching. There will be no road to Damascus, no trip to China. Bush and Rove are going to try to shoot their way out of this, resorting to precisely the scummy smear tactics Patrick Fitzgerald just laid bare. They're going to keep trying to Swiftboat anyone who opposes them — except that Bush's approval rating is about 37% right now, which means they're going to have to Swiftboat almost two-thirds of the U.S. Six in ten voters now think Bush is dishonest, and yet he's going to insist, as always, that we shut up and trust him or be branded traitors. It's almost funny.

But really it's sad. I thought, perhaps, there was a moment when better natures might take over, if only in the name of self-preservation. Once again I underestimated this man's tragic stupidity. My consolation is that it can't work. The numbers are against him now. If this is really the way he wants to spend the next three years, his reputation going down in a hail of bullets while he and Turd Blossom keep jabbering about everyone else's crimes, I say: Bring It On.

Altschul sets the dial to self-skewer as he describes how his chatty cocktail party predictions and assertions about this critical point in the Bush presidency went "horribly, grotesquely wrong." A funny/sad read.