Hull of H.M.S. Bush now more holes than timber

If you're a Republican, you know you're in trouble when even Bill O'Reilly starts ordering flowers for the funeral of your political career.

But make no mistake about it, the Bush presidency is in trouble. W needs to regain his leadership credibility and he needs to show the nation his administration is in command, especially in Iraq, which the elite media will spin negative all day long.

Finally, President Bush must directly engage the American oil companies and make sure working Americans are not brutalized by home heating costs this winter. If that situation is not brought under control soon, Mr. Bush will be doomed.

Just four weeks ago, the President was enjoying his summer vacation in Crawford, Texas with only the minor annoyance of Cindy Sheehan causing him angst. Now, his entire legacy is wobbling. The levees have been breached on Pennsylvania Avenue. But in this situation, no evacuation is possible.

And of course, that news comes close on the heels of his closest partners in crime, the Brits, announcing that the the UK is going to finally pull up stakes and get the hell out of Iraq in the near future.

British troops will start a major withdrawal from Iraq next May under detailed plans on military disengagement to be published next month, The Observer can reveal.

The document being drawn up by the British government and the US will be presented to the Iraqi parliament in October and will spark fresh controversy over how long British troops will stay in the country. Tony Blair hopes that, despite continuing and widespread violence in Iraq, the move will show that there is progress following the conflict of 2003.

I believe that Blair is setting the stage and providing an early demonstration of how Bush will spin his exit from Iraq to try to boost sagging GOP numbers for the 2006 mid-term elections. What they are doing is nothing more than a thinly disguised version of Nixon's "exit strategy" for Vietnam, which was famously dubbed, "Declare victory and go home."

If you can simply ignore reality, you can pitch a slider over the plate to a nation of gullible believers who are ready grasp for any straw that makes your failed policy look like a win. "Look. See how well things are going? We're making so much progress that we're going to start pulling the troops out. Hey... put that camera down, wise guy."

And if the nation erupts into an open, full blown civil war... if real progressive democracy is a forgotten dream being replaced by a harsh Islamic theocracy... if Saddam's brutal Baathist repression of the Kurds is replaced by a brutal repression of the group formerly in power... if corruption runs so rampant that what little remains of their fragile, fledgling economy completely collapses... well, you just blame the terrorists. Oh, and you save some blame for the Democrats who "pushed too hard to pull our noble troops out before they could finish the job."

It will be up to future presidential historians to dig their way through a layer of bullshit, rhetoric and spin deeper than the muddy silt currently covering New Orleans and get at the truth of this presidency. And when they do, I believe that George W. Bush's administration will be revealed as one of the most flawed and corrupt in the nation's history, author of some of the greatest blunders ever committed by a superpower.