Having planted my tinfoil hat firmly upon my noggin, I will advance the following conspiracy theory:

The Dems went on attack mode against Libby and Rove last month in preparation for the recent elections. They probably coordinated the bullshit legal attacks on Tom Delay, knowing that Frist is not the leader that Delay is.

Although the recent elections themselves were forgone conclusions for the Dems, the Dems got some momentum there. The Delay/Libby/Rove travails plus the Dem wins in the elections, combined with RINO assholery in the House, has distracted the White House and caused it to pull back like a turtle pulling into its shell.

W. doesn't like the press, and he doesn't like having to justify himself to the press. (Note that he doesn't dislike people; he correctly judges that "the press" and "the people" barely coincide these days.) He may have just been laying low and wating for the storm to pass. But this inactivity has exercised his base, who were already cranky from the Miers debacle; conservatives are in no mood to brook continued shenanigans from the Left.

The Dems played a beautiful hand in the last couple of months, beginning with the spin on Katrina. They've had the Republicans on the ropes both politically and in a P.R. sense. Bush needs to push back not just on Iraq, but also on the domestic front. He needs to get some party discipline going in both the House and the Senate, and to start getting the economic message out.

And since I have said this, it must be true.

Monty makes a good point - the conservative base is made - they want Bush to fight back - the corollary is that Bush cannot do it alone - now that the base is energized, it needs to focus outwards and hit back hard. The Dems have controlled the agenda for the last few months - time to take it away.

Monty, you said it.
I was thinking 'rope-a-dope' ala Muhammad Ali, and I hope the whole Repub party comes out swinging.
Especially for when it counts, that is, from now until next November.
Perhaps they've been waiting for good news from Iraq (oh, like, a successful election, and the Dec constitution) to make headlines.
Relying on the MSM??
Good luck!
They had more important 'news'.
Time to take the bull by the horns...

just saw Jim Sasser on Fox peddling the same "we wuz mislead" crap.

remember how funny he sounded when he talked about the "dafficit"?

One off. Bush couldn't sell free Viagra to old men in nursing homes on a field trip to a whore house.

He's let me down more than he's impressed me, and I just don't think fighting back now is going to help one bit. The lies have already been packaged, sold, and carved into stone as truth now. Had he been doing this from the start, then we'd be in better shape, I think.

I agree with Monty. Getting rid of Delay, Newt, Barr and Rogan-all of the ones who did not even think of pulling Rino McCain moves, has been a long plan, but worth it-to the dems. What we are left with are spineless less than Rinos who actually think they will get reelected. We need a completely new set of real Repubs. Although I have been angry with Bush for not saying anything, it is understandable. It's not like he could count on any of the Senate or House member to have his back-more like he could count on them to stab him in the back.
The only other alternative is a strong third party.

tinfoil hats monty? It's all a rovian plot:

The only way democrats can excuse the fact that they also supported the war and exploit for maximum effect the unpopularity of the war is to continue to use this "we were misled" crap. Now that they have established the misconception that we were misled and that the WMD threat was all a lie, the democrats enmasse will soon start advocating the immediate withdrawal from Iraq and this will be their major issue in upcoming elections.

Once again as they did during the Watergate scandal, the Democrats will betray our allies and the national interest to take advantage of the unpopularity of a war for short term political gain. Democrats will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

Same old speech. Bush is still misleading:

``More than 100 Democrats in the House and Senate who had access to the same intelligence voted to remove Saddam Hussein from power,'' the president said.

Except, of course, that the IWR vote was NOT to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Bush
s story at that time was very clear: it was all about DISARMING. That is what the IWR was for, as he made clear in this WH press release:

Bush: But I am very firm in my desire to make sure that Saddam is disarmed. Hopefully, we can do this peacefully. The use of the military is my last choice, is my last desire.

More examples here. So the disarming part started with the UN inspectors – and they weren’t allowed to finish their jobs.

You thought I was going to take exception to the "same intelligence" part? Well, that's BS too. Hadley was ripped on it yesterday, today Bush gets his lumps. If you want to understand why this NIE was so, uh SPECIAL, read Jane Hamsher on it.

Bush lied two years ago, and he's still lying today.

More glimpses of truth from the MSM. This is from a Knight-Ridder story on Bush's speech (if you read down far enough):

Before the war, the President and his aides contended Hussein was concealing nuclear, biological and chemical warfare programs in violation of a U.N. ban. None have ever been found.

Hussein, they said, was in league with al-Qaeda and had to be toppled before he could give banned weapons to terrorists.

The administration relied in part on a seriously flawed, hastily written October 2002 U.S. intelligence assessment, which concluded that Hussein was hiding an illegal nuclear-weapons program and stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons.

But the administration's assertions about Iraq's ties to al-Qaeda were not supported by U.S. intelligence agencies.

More glimpses of truth from the MSM

That's funny.

That's about all the truth we get from the MSM: the occasional glimpse.