Sign of the times

I saw a guy in his driveway yesterday peeling a "Bush/Cheney 04" bumper sticker off the back of his SUV, and I almost was tempted to stop and ask if this was a sign of a rat leaving a sinking ship. But I thought better of it.

I don't expect that the erstwhile Bush loyalists who only now are giving up on him are in good humor these days. They probably have felt isolated and politically out of touch with the American mainstream over these recent days and months.

And the situation for Bush is only getting worse. The latest CBS poll has his approval rating at an all-time low and shows that a solid majority of Americans want to see a reduction in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq or a complete withdrawal. The results are much the same in all the other polls, even the one sponsored by Fox News, the pro-Bush channel.

Bush's only hope for even a little political gain in the near future rests on the chance that some folks might begin to feel sorry for him. But there's not likely to be much of even that.