Lord, relationships are so hard.
President George W. Bush has been pounded this week, accused of being weak and practicing cronyism. He's risking it all, the critics complain, chickening out on the chance of a lifetime. Just who is this woman, Harriet Miers, anyway?
Those are his friends talking. Boy, the love can go south so fast.
"Trust me" just isn't good enough, says Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), when it comes to Miers, Bush's former personal lawyer, his current White House counsel and now his nominee to replace the powerful Supreme Court swing vote of Sandra Day O'Connor.
Let's face it, there's some serious heartbreak in the ranks of people who have been devoted to the president.
People have got issues.
Which is why Maryrita Wieners wouldn't mind having Bush and any one of the disgruntled conservatives in her Washington office.
Wieners, you see, is a couples counselor, and in nearly 10 years of saving relationships, she has developed a Hubble-like eye for trouble.
"For me, what's important to rebuilding trust is connection," she says. "The way I build connection when I sit with the couple, I tell them that I have two different worlds here."
The worlds are where each adult lives, she says, and a key to solving their problems is learning what it's like to live in each other's world. This is called the "Imago" method of therapy, where communication and empathy are key to healing. Oprah loves Imago, Wieners says; Alanis Morissette swears by it.
But could this work for Bush and his base? Until a few days ago, everyone believed they were living in the same world, looking through the same glasses, dreaming the same Supreme Court dreams.
Bush and his emissaries have spent days trying to convince people that they still are. But there was the Weekly Standard's William Kristol on national television yesterday calling for Miers to step aside.
