34...And Other Bad News

PRESIDENT BUSH GOT bad news on several fronts over the weekend. Not only did a new poll show his approval rating at an all-time low of 34 percent, but a couple of key Bush-defenders had some harsh words for POTUS. Fred Barnes ripped into Bush in a piece in the Weekly Standard. Then, as if a slap in the face from Barnes wasn't enough, fellow Standard crony Bill Kristol went on Fox News Sunday and said, 'we have not had a serious three-year effort to fight a war in Iraq.' Of course, this prompts the obvious question posted over at Think Progress: 'Mr. Kristol, if the administration's policy in Iraq the last three years has not been a serious effort why have you spent the last three years defending it?'

Then this little number from Chris Wallace's interview with White House Home Land Security Advisor Fran Townsend on FNS:

WALLACE: But you say you want people to learn what you've learned. If you're doing a 45-day review, it sounds like that's more for public education than it is for you to study you, the administration, to study these issues yourselves.

TOWNSEND: Well, the answer is we haven't received a request yet from the company. There are ongoing discussions. We'll have to see what that letter or what that request would include.
But the answer is as we go up to Congress, as we talk to people about the facts of the deal, we believe more people will be comfortable with it as they learn the facts.

WALLACE: But here's, I guess, the point. Just two days ago, the president's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said that there's nothing to reopen. He said that the review was complete. What's changed?

TOWNSEND: Well, that's right. Steve was absolutely correct when he said that. We have no mechanism we, the government, have no mechanism, having completed our review, to reopen it. The only thing that could cause it to be reopened would be a request from the company itself. We can't generate that. That's really up to the company

So let me understand this. We can't reopen the review of the DPW deal unless the very company we want to review requests it? And the WH thought that argument would work?

In related news...Dubai Ports World has formally asked the United States to reopen the review of their deal. Shocker!