USA Today begins this article, "Some Republicans are saying aloud something that seemed unthinkable just a few months ago: President Bush could lose next year’s election."

Let me be clear that I think this perception, fueled by the elite media, the Democrats’ attempt to latch unto something, anything--now WMD, now unilaterialism, now all-of-Iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket--that will give them some traction, is a good thing. Perception in politics counts for much, and sometimes it seems as if it can take you all the way over the goal line. If Bush is going to seem vulnerable, this is the time to so seem. This had better not happen next April or May, for example. Anyone worthy of the name of analyst would have predicted a low point in Bush’s political fortunes sometime between now and the election; but no one could have predicted when that would happen. Well, here it is, or here is the perception of it. Now, let’s see how far they can carry this ball. Not as far as they think. In their enthusiastic raptures to multilateralism, their paeans to the upstanding French, their deep understanding of the ways diplomacy and war, their deep knowledge of the pessimistic nature of
Americans, these nay-sayers-of-negativism are forgetting that there is another team on the field between their driving perception and the goal post. This is a good game.