Besieged Bush faces attacks from friends as well as foes

[tuvor]

Sunday October 30, 2005
The Observer

On Monday evening last week, as darkness descended on the capital, smartly dressed FBI agents moved quietly through the leafy Washington neighbourhood of Georgetown. They knocked on doors, questioning several residents about how well they knew Valerie Plame, the exposed CIA agent at the heart of a scandal that has rocked the Bush administration to its foundations.

These are times of deep crisis in America. The stunning image of FBI agents scouring the most exclusive suburbs of Washington, just a mile or so from the White House, sums up the mood of fear, paranoia and siege mentality now gripping the Bush administration.

President George Bush has just had the worst single week of his political life. It first saw the 2,000th US soldier die in Iraq. Then came the humiliation of Harriet Miers withdrawing her candidacy for the Supreme Court. Finally, came the hammer blow of Plamegate that saw top White House aide Lewis 'Scooter' Libby face five criminal charges and perhaps a lengthy jail term.

And there is no end in sight to the troubles. Bush's political guru Karl Rove is still under the shadow of investigation by the Plamegate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. A trickle of former allies, friends and colleagues have also begun openly to turn on Bush. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, has blasted the march to war with Iraq, blaming it on a right-wing 'cabal' in the administration. Brent Scowcroft, a close confidant of Bush's father, has also gone public. He last week slammed the war in Iraq and revealed the younger Bush had not spoken to him in two years.

That sums up Bush's mood: bitter and angry at his perceived enemies who are then cast out of the inner circle. The formerly watertight Bush White House is starting to leak badly, revealing an inside picture of a President furious at the way his second term has collapsed around him and unwilling to blame himself for any of the disasters. Bush has always had a temper, but now reports of furious tirades against senior staff, and even of rows between Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, have begun to emerge.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1604573,00.html

[Demeter]

1. Bush Has No Friends--Just Enablers and Puppet Masters

I wouldn't take his place for all the money in the world. He's given away all the power a person has and is entitled to have, to try to be an absolute dictator: as a result, when the bills come due, he will have nothing.