A piece in Knight-Ridder Newspapers makes some of the same points were have made here in our posts on the killing of terrorist bigwig Zarqawi and the news today that White House political guru Karl Rove won’t be indicted:
The [Rove] developments added to the optimism that swept through the White House after last week’s slaying of terrorist chief Abu Musab al Zarqawi in Iraq and the completion of a new Iraqi government.
In addition, a Republican won the June 6 special election to fill the San Diego congressional seat left vacant by former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s bribery conviction, reviving hope among Republicans that congressional elections in November may not doom them. Bush’s recent appointments of Josh Bolten as White House chief of staff and Henry Paulson as treasury secretary also won widespread praise.
“All of a sudden the clouds broke and the sun started to shine,” said Ed Gillespie, a former Republican Party chairman. “After six months of thunderstorms and rain it feels pretty good.”
How long the good days will last for the president is another question.
“He’s had a spate of good news,” said Paul Light, a public policy professor at New York University. “But there has to be the recognition that time is running out. That’s the nature of the political clock.”
Democrats scoffed at suggestions that Bush was rebounding.
“These few developments – and for instance, the Zarqawi one is one I welcome – don’t remove the cloud of incompetence that is over the administration’s head,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “I don’t think the administration can really recover until they change their entire way of operating, bring in people who are not ideologues or cronies but rather care about competently running the government; begin to reach out in a bipartisan way.”
If the Bush team is not yet totally back in stride, they do seem to be getting up from a series of huge fumbles. And, as always, they will go on the offensive (Rove already has). Are the Democrats prepared to (a) offer a specific alternative, (b) be ready to answer any and all Rove/GOP charges or new political offensives quickly?
Some people see the handwriting on the wall; the Democrats often act as if they not only can’t see the handwriting on the wall but they don’t see the wall as it falls down on them. Will 2006 be different?
UPDATE: Another take on this from The Heretik.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.