Todd Purdum: Bush's Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

A Long, Rocky Road With 39 Months to Go - New York Times: "'There's all this talk about the Republican base and the conservative base of the Republican Party, and the conservative base of the president and how it's important to play to the base and please the base and fawn over the base,' said former Senator John C. Danforth, the Missouri Republican who was Mr. Bush's ambassador to the United Nations.

'And look what it gets President Bush,' Mr. Danforth continued. 'It just gets him a kick in the rear. That's what they've done to him, and they've done it to him at a time when he's vulnerable, and they've done it at the expense of a perfectly fine human being.'

Some scholars and Republican elders say it is now time for Mr. Bush to do what Ronald Reagan did when the Iran-contra scandal threatened to derail his second term: shake up the White House staff, retool his domestic and foreign policy agenda and move on. But most say they see few signs that Mr. Bush intends to do so."