A headline we thought, on the darkest days of 8 dark years, we might never see: "Put a Fork in Him"

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Put a Fork in Him
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, September 30, 2008

President Bush put what was left of his influence on the line in his push to get Congress to pass a massive financial bailout. So yesterday, when House Republicans killed his proposal, it wasn't just the stock market that took its biggest tumble in history.

Bush is now wiped out.

Dan Eggen and Michael Abramowitz write in The Washington Post: "The vote marked the biggest legislative defeat of Bush's tenure and underscored the vanishing influence of a president who could once bend a pliant Congress to his will on wars, taxes, surveillance and a host of other high-profile initiatives....

Jackie Calmes writes in the New York Times: "If there was any doubt that President Bush had been left politically impotent by his travails over the last few years and his lame-duck status, it was erased on Monday when, despite his personal pleas, more than two-thirds of the Republicans in the House abandoned the plan....At the White House, aides described the president as working the phones to lobby a dozen Republicans. Vice President Dick Cheney, a former No. 2 House Republican leader, pitched in, with no better luck."...

***

Jonathan Weisman writes in The Washington Post: "For Bush, the defeat was the starkest sign yet that a president who once had lockstep support among congressional Republicans has all but lost his influence. He has had vetoes overridden, on a water projects bill and a major agriculture measure, but nothing to compare to the defeat of a measure he had said was critical to the nation's economy....Yesterday, Bush called nearly every member of Texas's Republican delegation, GOP aides said. He won over four of the 19."

Richard Wolf, Kathy Kiely, Fredreka Schouten and John Fritze write for USA Today: "When President Bush came on television at 7:35 a.m. Monday to urge passage of a $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan, fellow Republicans working out in the House gymnasium jeered his remarks."...

Craig Crawford blogs for CQ: "George W. Bush's White House has gone belly up, not unlike those big banks that failed. The president's political credit was revoked today as his financial bailout failed to pass in the House of Representatives. This is what happens to a president who lied to Congress to start a war, among other things -- even if this time he is proposing the best thing for the country."

Justin Webb blogs for the BBC: "With the Republican revolt in the House of Representatives, President Bush is now confirmed as the weakest Commander-in-Chief in modern history....

Gallup reports: "According to a Sept. 26-27 USA Today/Gallup poll, just 27% of Americans approve of the job George W. Bush is doing as president, the lowest rating of his presidency....His high rating for the year is only 34%....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/09/30/BL2008093000906_pf.html