THE REPUBLICANS HAVE MORE TO WORRY ABOUT THAN JUST BUSH'S TOTAL REJECTION

Bush may be the Republicans' most visible problem, but he's certainly not their only problem. No one thought the 28% approval rating he's had almost all year could possibly go down. But it just did; Newsweek has a new poll out that shows only 26% of Americans approve of the job Bush has been doing. It's worse when you just look at Iraq. "A record 73 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Bush has done handling Iraq."

The 26 percent rating puts Bush lower than Jimmy Carter, who sunk to his nadir of 28 percent in a Gallup poll in June 1979. In fact, the only president in the last 35 years to score lower than Bush is Richard Nixon. Nixon’s approval rating tumbled to 23 percent in January 1974, seven months before his resignation over the botched Watergate break-in.

Bush's problem-- and the GOP's problem-- is that virtually no one believes anything he says anymore. Sidney Blumenthal opened the heavy curtains and what's he's exposed bodes badly for Bush and his party. And for good reason.

In private, Bush administration sub-Cabinet officials who have been instrumental in formulating and sustaining the legal "war paradigm" acknowledge that their efforts to create a system for detainees separate from due process, criminal justice and law enforcement have failed. One of the key framers of the war paradigm (in which the president in his wartime capacity as commander in chief makes and enforces laws as he sees fit, overriding the constitutional system of checks and balances), who a year ago was arguing vehemently for pushing its boundaries, confesses that he has abandoned his belief in the whole doctrine, though he refuses to say so publicly. If he were to speak up, given his seminal role in formulating the policy and his stature among the Federalist Society cadres that run it, his rejection would have a shattering impact, far more than political philosopher Francis Fukuyama's denunciation of the neoconservatism he formerly embraced. But this figure remains careful to disclose his disillusionment with his own handiwork only in off-the-record conversations. Yet another Bush legal official, even now at the commanding heights of power, admits that the administration's policies are largely discredited. In its defense, he says without a hint of irony or sarcasm, "Not everything we've done has been illegal." He adds, "Not everything has been ultra vires" -- a legal term referring to actions beyond the law.

I suspect that Cheney's latest above the law, extra-Constitutional power grab isn't going to help matters, not at all. It may be hard to imagine anyone making someone as sleazy and corrupt as Rahm Emanuel look good. Cheney does.

GOP propagandist Robert Novak feels the spill over will be devastating for the GOP. "The private outlook for '08 by Republican leaders is gloomy-- not a Democratic blowout, but probable Democratic wins for President, Senate and House, with the best GOP chance being in the race for President. It may be premature, but Republican insiders are already talking about the outlook for 2010."

And he's being optimistic. Less biased observers do see a Democratic blowout in the making. There isn't a Republican presidential candidate that is satisfactory to any sizable part of the fracturing Republican coalition. But even worse than the dislike so many Republicans feel towards senile and untrustworthy John McCain who's out of sync with America on Iraq and out of sync with the GOP base on immigration or with Giuliani's bizarre and highly unorthodox personal life and his closeness with criminal figures is the explosive "religion issue" embedded in Romney's thirst for the presidency.

The kind of bigotry that fuels Fundie-Christianist hatred for Mormonism-- not that they don't hate everything and everyone else-- is something that doesn't get spoken about publicly, at least not with strangers around. The GOP candidates themselves are, to a greater or lesser degree, sincere about being opposed to blatant religious bigotry. However, the trick is to keep your goddam supporters' mouths shut. The fundie nuts have had permission and even encouragement to hate the Mormon cult for years and decades. They also quietly-- more or less-- hate Jews, Catholics, Muslims (no one has to feign politeness about that any longer; I mean it's almost acceptable to be an anti-Islam bigot in polite company in much of America and it the Buy Bull belt it's practically required), and even non-fundie Protestants. Lately it's been spilling over into the presidential campaign, where Mitt Romney is getting more crap because he's a cult member than because he's flip flopped on every major issue that's important to the Republican base.