So what now?

The Bush administration is on the ropes. Not the first administration to be in that position but how will Bush react? Like Warren G. Harding and Richard Nixon or like Ronald (Nancy) Reagan. Over at the Huffington Post Jim Lampley gives us a short history lesson.

More than eighty years ago the administration of Warren G. Harding imploded in embarrassment and shame because the President lacked the awareness and the moral commitment necessary to curb his associates' greediest and most craven instincts. Harding receded into detached paranoia, and was largely absent from the closing days of his tenure.

[......]

......Richard Nixon, whose dreams of making a mark on history were shortcircuited by scandal borne of his cadre's belief that political power placed them above the letter of the law. As Congress prepared the Articles of Impeachment, Nixon stormed through the halls of the White House, out of control.

Ronald Reagan had Iran Contra that threatened to bring down his administration. He reacted differently, a complete house cleaning. He got rid of the nut cases that got him into the mess, many of the same characters that have gotten George W. Bush into the mess he finds himself in, and brought in an entire new team. Ronald Regan left office with an approval rating in the 60's while both Harding and Nixon left office in shame.

Dan Balz and Juliet Eilperin at the Washington post address this issue in A New Moment of Truth For a White House in Crisis.

With yesterday's indictment of Vice President Cheney's top aide, President Bush's administration has become a textbook example of what can go wrong in a second term. Along with ineffectiveness, overreaching, intraparty rebellion, plunging public confidence and plain bad luck, scandal has now touched the highest levels of the White House staff.

Not surprisingly, Democrats were quick to condemn the president and his administration over the perjury and obstruction indictments of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. But even some Republicans suggested that the president and his team will have taken away the wrong lesson if they conclude that, other than the personal tragedy of Libby's indictment, the long investigation changes nothing of significance.

The question:

The question now facing the embattled president is whether he will use this moment of vulnerability to reflect on what has gone wrong this year and why, and then look for ways to regain his effectiveness.

So will Bush be a Harding or a Reagan?

GOP allies of the White House moved yesterday to insulate the president from the fallout of the Libby indictment by contrasting yesterday's action with previous White House scandals such as the Iran-contra affair that hit Ronald Reagan in his second term or the Monica S. Lewinsky episode that led to President Bill Clinton's impeachment.

"They all involved the president," said veteran GOP strategist Ron Kaufman. "This involves staff." Bill Paxon, a Republican former congressman from New York, said, "There is no one suggesting that this Oval Office occupant has anything to do with this matter."

But Bush is hardly immune from the problems that now surround his presidency. David C. King, associate director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University, said the president might benefit from a public admission of mistakes on his watch. "He can at least give the appearance of being open to criticism and being willing to change," especially in light of the fact that "there is a larger question in this administration of whether there is willingness to hear dissent," King said.

"There is no one suggesting that this Oval Office occupant has anything to do with this matter."Whatever happened to "the buck stops here"? and it's not like Monica.

John D. Podesta, who was chief of staff to Clinton, said Bush may be more constrained by his troubles than Clinton was by his. Noting that Clinton's approval ratings remained above 60 percent throughout the impeachment battle, while Bush's are in the low 40s, Podesta said, "When Clinton said, 'I'm going back to do my work,' people cheered," Podesta said. "When Bush says, 'I'm going to do the job I've been doing,' people say, 'Oh, no.' "

I don't see the drunk from Crawford admitting any mistakes, he never has. The Cheney/Rumsfeld nut cases remain firmly in charge and Bush will not bench them like Reagan and his own father did. Bush will go down as a second Harding and the United States and the world will suffer.