The Associated Press story is quite amusing:

"If he loses one house here, President Bush will enter the last two years very wounded," said David Gergen, a former White House adviser who served in the administrations of Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton.

"He will have the capacity to say no to Democratic legislation, but he won't have the capacity to say yes to his own legislation," said Gergen, who teaches at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Democratic victories essentially could block Bush's remaining agenda and usher in a period of intense partisan bickering over nearly every measure to come before Congress.

As if there hasn't been intense partisan bickering since the Republicans took Congress in 1994. As if the Republicans didn't escalate that intense bickering to a new level by politicizing 9/11 and making support of the Bush Administrations military adventurism in Iraq a litmus test for patriotism itself. As if the Republicans haven't spent the last 12 years painting the Democrats with lying labels.

The Republicans broke bipartisan collegiality, and now they own the consequences.

Loss of either chamber also could subject his administration to endless congressional inquiries and investigations.

After the rubber-stamp Congress of the past six years, it's about time. If the Bush Administration had sought bi-partisan support of its agenda, maybe this would not be so imperative now.

"There's no question that the Republican coalition is stressed over the way Washington has been handling fiscal matters, the Foley affair, the
Iraq war," said GOP consultant Scott Reed. "All of these are coming together at the same time."

Note the spin here: Republican coalition ≠ Washington. Isn't that convenient. Never mind that the Republicans have called all the shots in Washington for six years now.

Bush, in his own get-out-the-vote appeal, told Republicans: "The consequences of not succeeding this fall are dire for our agenda for America."

A quagmire in Iraq. Torture. Record deficits screaming ever upward. Taliban on the rise in Afghanistan. Spying on Americans without warrants. Forced pregnancy and state-run breeding slavery laws. Attempting to block Plan B and the cervical cancer vaccine. Head-in-the-sand thinking on global warming. FEMA incompetence post-Katrina. Energy policies focused on the 20th century oil industry. No health insurance plan, corrupt education programs, Fortune50 pharmaceuticals-friendly Medicare drug benefits, removing bankruptcy protection for the poor and middle class, the K Street Project, tax cuts for silver-spoon heirs, attempts to gut Social Security (the one federal government program that actually turns a surplus every year), multi-billion-dollar sweetheart deals for Halliburton, leaking Valerie Plame's covert CIA status, Terri Schiavo, Mark Foley, Dennis Hastert, Tom Delay, Bob Ney, Mark Abramoff, Macaca Allen....

Yes, I am counting on "dire" consequences for the Republican agenda.

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