"No wonder they're now afraid - very, very afraid."

This is, by far, the best piece I have read on the topic of "How The Bushies Got There, And Where Are They Going Now."

Here's a tidbit, but go read the whole thing. It's worth it.

It's finally Wizard of Oz time in America. You know - that moment when the curtains are pulled back, the fearsome-looking wizard wreathed in all that billowing smoke turns out to be some pitiful little guy, and everybody looks around sheepishly, wondering why they acted as they did for so long.

Starting on September 11, 2001 - with a monstrous helping hand from Osama bin Laden - the Bush administration played the fear card with unbelievable effectiveness. For years, with its companion "war on terror", it trumped every other card in the American political deck. With an absurd system for color-coding dangers to Americans, the president, vice president and the highest officials in this land were able to paint the media a "high" incendiary orange and the Democrats an "elevated" bright yellow, functionally sidelining them.

How stunningly in recent weeks the landscape has altered -almost like your basic hurricane sweeping through some unprotected and unprepared city. Now, to their amazement, Bush administration officials find themselves thrust through the equivalent of a Star-Trekkian wormhole into an anti-universe where everything that once worked for them seems to work against them. As always, in the face of domestic challenge, they have responded by attacking - a tactic that was effective for years. The president, vice president, national security adviser and others have ramped up their assaults, functionally accusing Democratic critics of little short of treason - of essentially undermining American forces in the field, if not offering aid and comfort to the enemy. On his recent trip to Asia, the president put it almost as bluntly as his vice president did at home, "As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them into war continue to stand behind them." The Democrats were, he said over and over, "irresponsible" in their attacks. Dick Cheney called them spineless "opportunists" peddling dishonestly for political advantage.

[snip]

Now both agendas are in disarray with no help whatsoever on the horizon. Imagine, for instance, that the South Koreans timed the announcement of the withdrawal of the first of their troops from (Kurdish) northern Iraq for the moment the president arrived in their country. Imagine that Tony Blair's people are now said to be perfecting total withdrawal plans for next year, and that the president recently may have had to slap down the top American general in Iraq for suggesting withdrawal (or at least draw down) plans of his own. Imagine that various European nations are now investigating (or in the case of an Italian court charging) American agents in the "war on terror" with crimes. Imagine that the president, who often insisted Saddam had been overthrown to rid Iraq of its torture chambers ("the torture chambers and the secret police are gone forever")and to end the reign of a "murderous tyrant who ... used chemical weapons to kill thousands of people", now faces a "tip-of-the-iceberg" torture scandal in Iraq involving the people we've brought to power and another spreading scandal about the American use of a chemical-like weapon, white phosphorous, on civilians in the city of Fallujah. Imagine that we proved less capable than Saddam of delivering basics like electricity and potable water to the people of Iraq, that we squandered billions of taxpayer dollars in "reconstruction" funds there, and that we face an insurgency that continues to grow and spread in opposition to a shabby elected government all but in league with the Iranians. Imagine that the president's Iraq war is now devouring his presidency and that it can only get worse.