Stampede - Yahoo! News: "Since that triumphant moment, the conventional wisdom is that nothing has gone right for the Republicans. But what, exactly, has happened to cause such a reversal in the party's fortunes? Has the economy collapsed? Not at all. It is humming along as strongly as ever, putting ever more distance between America's prosperity and that of Europe and Japan. Have the terrorists attacked the American homeland, exposing a weakness in our domestic security? No. Astonishingly, we have now gone more than four years without a successful attack on American soil, even though newspaper headlines reveal, on an almost daily basis, the bloodthirstiness of our enemies. Have there been setbacks in foreign policy that could explain how a party that was triumphant just 12 months ago should now be in full retreat? No. We continue to make progress in both Iraq and Afghanistan. On a number of fronts, liberty has taken root in the vital Middle East. And no foreign power even imagines that it could rival the United States in influence.
While there has been no real calamity in the last 12 months, the administration has suffered setbacks. But how severe have they been? Two hurricanes struck and many believed that FEMA responded slowly to one of them. Tom DeLay was indicted by a partisan Texas Democrat, District Attorney Ronnie Earle; DeLay's lawyer now has Earle on the run. President Bush made an unfortunate Supreme Court nomination, after which he took a mulligan and made an excellent nomination. An aide to the vice president has been accused of lying to a grand jury about telling the truth to the press about Joe Wilson's lies about the administration. And the president's poll ratings have dropped into a range occupied, at one time "
