Republicans are openly distancing themselves from Bush

This is great news. They're starting to fall apart. Mostly because of the bad poll numbers for Bush, which are in turn due to George Bush simply not being up to the job as president AND the public now fully realizing that fact.

I've said before that George Bush didn't win either presidential election, in 2000 or 2004. And no, I'm not talking about his stealing the election. I'm talking about the fact that far from receiving a mandate, most Americans didn't vote FOR Bush, they voted, rather, against Gore (to some degree) and against Kerry (to a large degree).

Most Americans have never loved George Bush. He comes across as a nice enough guy - well, he CAME across as a nice enough guy, but now is seemingly increasingly arrogant, and worse yet, much more arrogant than is deserved by someone who is kind of dumb and klutzy. Of course, in Bush's case, the klutziness expresses itself in half-baked wars and losing entire American cities.

No one was particularly impressed with Bush the first time around, and they liked him even less in 2004, but again, Al Gore and John Kerry didn't give the voters much of an alternative, so they stuck with Bush, even though by 2004 most certainly, most Americans neither liked the guy nor wanted him to continue in office.

Thus the germ of today's problem for Bush. The majority of Americans now realize that the emperor has no clothes, and that he doesn't have much of a brain either. They were willing to tolerate Bush as a caretaker president of sorts so long as things were going well - in the aftermath of September 11, people wanted comfort, and after initially running and hiding all day, Bush provided that comfort. People wanted revenge, and Bush attacked Afghanistan. Iraq was a bit more nebulous, but people were willing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt. But now that Iraq has become a total disaster, in addition to the public realizing they were pretty much lied to - that, coupled with Bush now having lost an entire American city - people are finally fed up.

Or rather than fed up, they're worried.

They finally fully realize that their caretaker isn't up to the job. But what do they do? First, they voted for the guy, and as bad as he is, the public is still a bit defensive about taking responsibility for having elected a failure, so they get testy when challenged directly on their vote. But, they very much realize now that even though Bush has 3 more years in office, he's now proven he can't handle the job and the country is going to go to hell if we have 3 more years of unrestrained George Bush.

Then there's the Congress - traditionally the body that provides a check on the presidency. But in this case, both the US House and the US Senate are run by Republicans, they have the majority. And that means, somewhat understandably, that the Republicans in Congress don't want to beat up on their own guy in the White House, no matter how bad a job he's doing.

Thus the only solution is to get someone in Congress who can provide some checks and balances vis-a-vis the White House - and that means, electing a Democratic majority to the Congress in the fall.

Voting for a Democratic Congress, whether you like it or not, is the only way to put a check on George Bush's power and mishaps. At the same time, if you're not so keen on Democrats, having a Republican in the White House will also provide a check on Democrats in Congress.

But as things currently stand, Republicans control the White House, Supreme Court (7 of 9 judges are Republican), the US Senate and the US House. There is literally no one able and willing to keep George Bush in line, to stop his hair-brained schemes before they turn into more Katrinas and more Iraqs and more Dubai port deals.

The only way to rein George Bush in, to ensure that he doesn't continue to hurt the country more than he already has, is to vote against Republican members of Congress in the coming congressional elections this November. Vote against Republicans, vote for Democrats - it's the only chance we have to put a protective bubble around George Bush so he doesn't hurt anyone else.