George Bush

We all know that, with less than 4 months to go, George Bush is a lame duck president.

But the magnitude of his being a lame duck (lame duckness?) became even more obvious this past week when the country didn't seem to listen to him as he made several pleas for the Paulson-Frank-Dodd plan, his cabinet was either missing in action or ineffective as public spokespeople, and House members from his own political party had no problem ignoring him.

Then CBS released a poll yesterday showing in numerical terms how much of lame duck Bush has become. The president's job approval rating has fallen to 22 percent, a 5 point drop from the previous week and his lowest ever.  Almost eactly 7 years ago, it was 90 percent.

Here's the money quote:

Earlier this week I said that President Bush had failed to make the direct and personal appeal needed to convince the folks at home that they should support the Paulson plan.  In light of last night's activities, where the talks on the plan at the White House with the president in attendance ended in acrimony with nothing being decided, it's clear that I gave the president too much credit.

Let's state this as directly as possible: the president of the United States was dissed last night by the House GOP.  If this were a parliamentary system of government, what happpened last night might have been considered the equivalent of a no confidence vote, or Bush would have been forced to resign as head of his party and been replaced by someone else.

But the GOp's nominal leader at the moment, John McCain, was also dissed.  After all, he was coming to Washington to make a deal happen...and the House GOP didn't just say no; it said Hell No!

My column on nationaljournal.com this week deals with the continuing refusal of the Bush administration to work with Congress on appropriations, or much of anything else. The reason: "winning" rather than "governing' is what's important to this White House.