Bush Agonistes

It's bad enough when other elected members of your party go out of their way to criticize you and distance themselves from you, as many GOP lawmakers have done to President Bush recently in the still-unfolding US Attorneys scandal. They, after all, have to worry about their House and Senate seats. But your problems are of a higher order when the chief political strategist of your re-election campaign decides to disavow you and your leadership on the front page of the New York Times, as Matthew Dowd did on Sunday. What's striking about Dowd's explanation is the sense of responsibility that permeates it. He doesn't just think Bush has made mistakes; he's speaking out as an act of atonement -- or, as he puts it, "to restore balance when things didn't turn out they way they should have."