I thoroughly enjoyed this article. I do not always enjoy Sidney, but always read him because when he's good, he's very good.

One comment I wanted to make: I have been hearing much lately about W's need to "clean house" a la Reagan in his second term. The problem is that W is not actually in charge. It appears obvious to me that W is a figurehead, and he has been ok with this from the start. RR was also a figurehead, but he never bought into it - he thought he was in charge. He was an old man who had been trying to become president for 20 years, and by the time he got there he was old enough and sick enough to be manipulated and taken advantage of - but only for so long. So when RR needed to clean house, he did. And he actually had competent people he knew and could trust to fall back on.

W won't clean house, because then he would actually have to govern - something he has no skill for and no interest in doing. W is just one of member of a committee of 4 or 5 that runs the country, and he isn't even the head of the committee. He has a role to play ("President"), and a say in the decisions they make, but he ain't the final authority.

Mr. Blumenthal: I loved your use of the word 'stateman' in your essay about the foundering Bush presidency. This is the very thing I have thought long missing from this administration. One never gets the sense that there is a statesman present (with the brief exception of poor Colin Powell), or even desired in the White House. I believe this fact becomes even more evident every time Bush speaks (and also by the fact that almost everyone calls him 'Bush' and not 'President Bush'.) Statesmen are reflective students of history and speak with a sense of the power of the English language, both politically and sensibly. For all their various faults, it was easy to see the statesman in JFK, LBJ, Carter, at times even Nixon, and Reagan as well as some of the fine public servants working on their behalf. Thank you for your clear-sighted analysis of this Sophoclean drama unfolding before our eyes daily. I have a request: Will you do an analysis on who among the Democrats we poor starving voters should watch and why?

Sincerely, Ilona Fucci

While I believe that Sidney Blumenthal is an excellent commentator, it is incredulous to me that he thinks that Prescott Bush was a moderate Republican, when it's been established over and over that that man financed the Nazis. I also find it incredulous that he thinks that the moderate, principled Republicans are now gone from the party due to Bush's recklessness. The Republicans have been purging moderates themselves from their own party for the past three decades. And without Junior's help they've been pursuing policies that are unintelligent, illogical, arrogant and harmful.

The Republicans have destroyed themselves through their own hubris, and I believe that even if they had found someone who gave all appearances of being intelligent and responsible for the highest office in the nation, most citizens of this country would still have seen the worthlessness of Republican policies. With Junior in charge, we're seeing it sooner when we still might have a chance to avert the disasters that await us if this man and his cabal remain in power and their policies take full, undiluted effect.

Amazingly, the disentegration of the Republican establishment has come completely from within. No outside pressure or maneuvering by the Democrats required.

For the last five years we've listen to the leftist lament over the splintered and defeated Democratic party. Powerless to the stop the conservative juggernaut, Democrats sat on their hands as the right orchestrated the march to war. Unable to conceive of their own marketing genius, they lost their voice, unable to contribute to the definitons of patriotism, family, torture, "death taxes," "activist judges," "up or down vote", and the amorphous "right to privacy."

And yet, much like the Democrats before them, the satiated Republicans, bloated from swallowed arrogance, have imploded all by themselves. Free-thinking conservatives, subjugated to the religious right, lie awake at night, knowing in their heart of hearts that freedom for Iraqi citizens wasn't the real goal, that "socially liberal, but fiscally conservative" is more Clinton than Bush, mand that maybe, just maybe, it's time for a change.

Sidney Blumenthal's statement that "Bush has so thoroughly destroyed the Republican establishment that no one, not even his dad, can rescue him now" sounds like wishful thinking to me. I wonder if he was also one of those in early 2004 who was confident that there was no way that W. would or could win reelection.

Watch out for that echo-chamber effect, Sidney!