Is President Bush a lame duck? Murmurs to that effect are the background noise against which Bush is competing today as he holds his monthly press conference.
You can hear the hum in news stories across the country over the last few days.
Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei write in The Washington Post: "Two days after winning reelection last fall, President Bush declared that he had earned plenty of 'political capital, and now I intend to spend it.' Six months later, according to Republicans and Democrats alike, his bank account has been significantly drained. . . .
"Bush faces the potential of a summer of discontent when his capacity to muscle political Washington into following his lead seems to have diminished and few easy victories appear on the horizon."
Bush's weakened leverage with his own party, partly a result of polls showing that much of the public has soured on him and his priorities, "has unleashed the first mutterings of those dreaded second-term words, 'lame duck,' however premature it might be with 3 1/2 years left in his tenure," Baker and VandeHei write.
The New York Times Week in Review section on Sunday declared: "This may have been the week the lame duck landed in the Rose Garden."
Ken Herman writes for Cox News: "From fissures within his own party to having to use the phrase 'real progress' to characterize the agreement that could lead to defeat for two of his judicial nominees, President Bush is getting a stark lesson in the realities of second-termitis.
"Six months after a re-election that had Bush aides talking about a second-term mandate, there has been little progress on the president's priority issues. And polls indicate slippage for an incumbent whose numbers have long been near the break-even point."
Ron Hutcheson writes for Knight-Ridder Newspapers: "Back-to-back legislative setbacks last week raised questions about President Bush's clout in Congress and his effectiveness for the rest of his term. . . .
"At risk is his ambitious agenda, including big changes to Social Security, an overhaul of the federal tax system, and a new energy policy. Even before he took his second oath of office in January, Bush estimated that he had 18 months, at most, before his power started to wane.
"Now, some in Washington are revising that timetable."
Jill Zuckman writes in the Chicago Tribune: "When he was first elected president, George W. Bush was rewarded by a Republican Congress determined to see him succeed. . . .
