Will a war once again bail out a faltering presidency? Or will it crystallize for voters all of the contradictions of the Bush regime? Robert Kuttner: “Bush’s stock was not particularly high on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The economy was wobbly. He had alienated Republican moderates and sacrificed GOP control of the Senate. He was using a tenuous mandate to push radically conservative policies at odds with what most Americans had voted for. Then terrorists struck, and the Bush presidency was transformed.

It has taken 20 months for Bush’s slide to resume, yet he has an uncanny ability to step around blunders and deceptions that would sink an ordinary president. Will he do it again with another national security crisis, this time of his own invention?” The American Prospect