Death Watch at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

"The façade is gone and we are now seeing the Bush White House in all its incompetent glory. They’ve ignored reality for too long."
- Retired political science professor George Harleigh

Capitol Hill insider Doug Thompson has a must read analysis of the mood inside the White House these days. From the sound of things, the wheels have truly come off.

For all practical purposes, governing the nation has stopped at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as aides deal with an increasingly despondent President, mounting scandals and defecting dissidents from the Ship of State.

White House insiders say George W. Bush’s mood swings have increased to the point where meetings with the President must be cancelled, schedules shifted and plans changed to keep a bitter, distracted leader from the public eye.

“He’s like a zombie some days, walking around in a trance,” says one aide who, for obvious reasons, asks not to be identified. “Other times he launches into angry outbursts, cussing out anybody who gets near him.”

Aides say gallows humor has descended on the White House, where the West Wing is now referred to as “death row” and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, along with Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Scooter Libby, are known as “dead men walking,” a reference to the last walk death row inmates take to the execution chamber.

The rattling of coffin nails in the congressional GOP leadership is apparently also exacting a toll on Bush's demeanor.

With Congress distracted by growing scandals swirling around former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Washington has become a daily killing field for anyone involved in the GOP leadership.

This week, Former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s right-hand man unloaded on the Bush Administration during a speech to the New American Foundation, saying American foreign policy had been hijacked by “a Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal” that has destroyed this country’s credibility with its allies.

“I’m not sure the State Department even exists anymore,” Col. Larry Wilkerson, Powell’s chief of staff, told the audience of journalists and scholars. “It, like so many others things, have been destroyed by George W. Bush’s ‘cowboyism.’”

Wilkerson dismisses the Administration’s attempts to improve America’s image abroad.

“You can’t sell shit,” he said.

Yes, the H.M.S. Bush is sinking, and those who will be forced to "go down with the ship" aren't looking forward to a very cheery holiday season. Read Thompson's entire piece. You can view his biography here to get a sense of this guy's background.