Newsweek on Bush: Defensive and Weak

Below, an excerpt from a highly-rated column by Eleanor Clift on the Newsweek website:

Bush is at an all-time low. Exhorting a crowd of the faithful with a speech in Indiana, he sounded unhinged recycling old campaign lines about “hunting down the terrorists,” and how 9/11 changed him. “It’s hard to be a risk taker when you’re worrying about war all the time,” he said—a statement meant to convey who knows what. Before leaving Washington, Bush posed for a photo op releasing a Cabinet report that assessed, from the administration’s perspective, what went wrong in the Katrina response. His signature bravado is still evident, but events have eaten away at his credibility and left him defensive and weak at a time when the country needs him. This week’s attack on the Shiite mosque-followed by violent anti-Sunni reprisals—has thrust Iraq closer to all-out civil war despite Bush’s exaltations about how many times the Iraqis braved the terrorists to vote. The Muslim world is rocked with protests over real and perceived slights against Islam. And all of France is fixated on a horrific incident in which a gang of Muslims kidnapped and tortured a Jewish man in an apartment for three weeks, finally killing him.