The Anti-Bush Anchor

In this NYT look at how the Net is transforming politics, Adam Nagourney breaks a bit of news in the body of the piece:

"Democrats have set up decoy Web sites to post documents with damaging information about Republicans. They described this means of distribution as far more efficient than the more traditional slip of a document to a newspaper reporter.

"A senior party official, who was granted anonymity in exchange for describing a clandestine effort, said the party created a now-defunct site called D.C. Inside Scoop to, among other things, distribute a document written by Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, discussing the political benefits of the Terri Schiavo case. A second such site, http://capitolbuzz.blogspot.com, spread more mischievous information: the purported sighting of Senator Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican, parking in a spot reserved for the handicapped."

So you can't believe everything you read online. Who'd have thunk it?

In case you were enjoying the sunshine this weekend, here is my report on ABC News suspending a producer over a pair of leaked e-mails that contained very harsh comments about George Bush and Madeleine Albright. Both the producer and the news division have apologized.

Dan Smythe isn't buying ABC's apology, noting that the suspension came after the second e-mail about Albright: "How interesting that it took him slamming a liberal for his liberal bosses to take action.

Is the Bush administration out of gas? This post by National Review Editor Rich Lowry suggests the needle is moving toward Empty:

"It's not physical exhaustion that is hampering the White House so much as the intellectual kind. And that's not so easily cured by the widely anticipated staff 'shake-up' that is now under way with White House Chief of Staff Andy Card's replacement by Office of Management and Budget Director Josh Bolten.

"Ask GOP strategists what the party needs, and they invariably say something like, 'It would help to get a lucky break in Iraq.' Indeed, it would, but the standard for what constitutes such a break has been ever-sinking. At this point, it might be avoiding a full-fledged civil war and seeing the Iraqis form a government, any government. Neither can be expected to be a political boon to the president.

"President Bush swept into his second term determined not to be overcome by the political lassitude that traditionally drags down second-term presidencies. He had an ambitious reform agenda, and initially the debate among his supporters was over what should come first: Social Security reform or tax reform? Bush went for Social Security reform, and it sank without a trace, with tax reform quickly going the same way.

"Thus, Bush lost the fight for the Big Ideas of his second term and has instead been thrown back to trying desperately to keep alive the Big Idea from his first term: democratizing Iraq. Other policy arrows in his quiver have been shot, since the budget deficit makes more tax cuts politically unsalable, and more big-spending measures are out for the same reason. To the extent that Bush's 'compassionate conservatism' was ever a coherent approach to governing, it is now spent, and it's not clear that the White House -- nor the broader conservative community -- has any bright, plausible ideas about what should fill the void."

On the very same day--trend, anyone?--the Wall Street Journal editorial page takes on the GOP: