Is Bush's Power Waning?

And now, to return to a question I have asked before, has George Bush's power waned (or, alternately, has he at least mellowed) since the Republicans lost control of Congress?


I believe there is some evidence of it. He is moving away from the position of "We don't negotiate with evil, we defeat it." He undertook the surge in Iraq against the advice of the establishmen, but it is having moderate success because General Petraeus is proving to be a shrewd politician and is negotiating with some unsavory people in the interest of defeating worse ones. We have made a deal with North Korea. The intelligence community has torpedoed Cheney's proposed war with Iran. And, on the home front, we now have a sane Secretary of Defense and Attorney General, albeit ones locked into old Bush Administration policies. Bush is now submitting his wiretapping to the FISA court. So, yes, there is evidence of greater maturity and flexibility on the part of the Administration, though whether this is the result of losing control of Congress or just of experience is hard to tell.

But the one area where we can expect George Bush to be utterly inflexible is in concealing his past deeds. He will resist to the utmost anything that might expose what he has been up to for the past six years, because that is what might result in indictments.