White House Year in Review: Bush Loses His Parade

* March 21:Incredibly Optimistic

"I understand how some Americans have had their confidence shaken," President Bush said yesterday in Cleveland. "Others look at the violence they see each night on their television screens, and they wonder how I can remain so optimistic about the prospects of success in Iraq. They wonder what I see that they don't."

Bush tried to explain. But in the end, what he provided was yet another example of what others see -- and he doesn't.

That would be reality.

* March 28:The Card Sacrifice

Sacrificing Andy Card, his longtime chief of staff, is President Bush's way of responding to the growing complaints about the administration's competence.

The botched response to Hurricane Katrina, the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the rocky relations with the Republican Congress -- all of these are seen at least in part as failures of execution. And execution is the chief of staff's job.

But Card's departure in no way addresses the two even more fundamental areas where Bush is vulnerable: His decisions and his credibility.

* March 31:A Compelling Story

Slowly but surely, investigative reporter Murray Waas has been putting together a compelling narrative about how President Bush and his top aides contrived their bogus case for war in Iraq; how they succeeded in keeping charges of deception from becoming a major issue in the 2004 election; and how they continue to keep most of the press off the trail to this day.

What emerges in Waas's stories is a consistent White House modus operandi: That time and time again, Bush and his aides have selectively leaked or declassified secret intelligence findings that served their political agenda -- while aggressively asserting the need to keep secret the information that would tend to discredit them.

* April 26:The Snow Forecast