Bush tactics old and stale

E. J. Dionne has an excellent editorial in the Washington Post today. The best paragraph in it describes Bush's tired old nasty politics.

The health care debate is a metaphor for the larger problems with Bush's approach to politics. He thinks he can say anything about an opponent, true or not. He figures that if he tosses out a few moderate-sounding phrases, voters will ignore how conservative he is. He calculates that if he says scary things about Kerry's taxing and spending plans, Americans will ignore the deficits he's run up. And Bush hopes that if he gets all of us arguing about labels, we'll forget about the problems that are going unsolved.

I think that the cumulative effects of Bush's poor performance in the three debates, compared to Kerry's clear command of the issues and Presidential bearing, is catching up to Bush. The media is no longer buying his sick shtick.

It's about time.