enough

Americanlogic has a request. Please, all major newspaper websites must stop doing the "will Bush suddenly reverse course in 06" story. It is a cliched, overdone topic. Plus, they should know better.

Bush ran as a new breed of "compassionate conservative (aka centrist)" in 2000 against the center leftism of Gore. The media legitimized this phony label. They refused to take on the distortions of Bush's tax policy and general aptitude for the presidency. Of course, as we all know, once Bush became president all bets were off. First order of the day: massive tax cuts and social conservative engineering.

Bush ran in 2004 as the war candidate. Most americans cannot bring themself to vote against a president who is in the midst of running a war (even a premptive one) so the result was clear from the get go. Throw in a flawed but intelligent opponent who refused to fight back and presto, another term.

Americanlogic will become blue in the face if he has to continue to say this: Bush will not change, he will only make you believe he has. Any slight shift in his defiant tone will seem like a departure from his tired schtick. He will not start suddenly working with Democrats, he will not suddenly pull massive troops out of Iraq and disengage them from the growing civil war, he will not demand accountability from his cabinet and he will not suddenly realize he has limited powers under the Constitution.

Matthews, keep dreaming.