On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Doug Henwood wrote: > And it's taken about 2 years for 9/11 to wear off.
That's an important point. Because it wasn't just 9/11. It was 9/11, followed by Afghanistan (and the automatic boost in support for the president that comes with every war), followed by Iraq. They've been acting like they might invade Iraq at any moment around May 2002. The war in Iraq was followed by another presidential surge, which almost immediately began to fall. And interestingly, the Plame game took off at almost the precise moment when his ratings hit 50% with a negative bullet. Lastly, during the last two years there has been a fear on the liberal side of the aisle that this bubble of war support was unpoppable because they could always start another one. Only in the last few months has it been generally understood by people who don't follow military matters that isn't true because we're completely out of troops. In some ways, the Wilson Plame affair perfectly reflects the contours of Bush's growing weakness. It started a month after the fighting in Iraq was declared done, when it was clear it wasn't done and there wasn't any WMD. Plame was exposed then, and it was mentioned that this was breaking the law, but it the momentum ran out of the Yellowcake scandal before this second stage took off. What got it going again last week was a leak to the Washington Post on September 28th that a Senior Administration Official (a designation usually reserved for the top names in the executive branch) contacted 6 different reporters with the Plame story, and none of them picked it up except Novak. That same story quoted the official as saying it was done out of revenge. And this new development perfectly coincided with the tipping point of Bush's polls; the clear failure of his televised address and the highlighting of that poll decline; the trouble over the $87 billion request made in that speech; a joint Congressional report that concluded decisively that the administration had "no new intelligence" when it declared war on Iraq (i.e., that it was all lies); and a report from David Kay that he had found nothing. Like Doug said, the more you look at it, the less surprising it looks. Michael
