Rain Storm -- an online journal of opinion and culture

WASHINGTON - Evangelicals, Republican women, Southerners and other critical groups in President Bush's political coalition are worried about the direction the nation is headed and disappointed with his performance, an AP-Ipsos poll found.

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The intensity of support for Bush's job performance has also dropped sharply among white evangelicals, Southerners, people from rural areas and suburban men.

"We've lost focus on where we're supposed to be going and not able to respond to the crises that affect the people of this country," said David Ernest, a Republican from San Ramon, Calif., who is angry about the government's response to Hurricane Katrina. "We're mired in a Middle Eastern adventure and we've taken the focus off of our own country."

Bush has tried to reassure conservatives about his Supreme Court nominee. He's also trying to counter critics of the war by tying U.S. efforts in Iraq to the larger war against terrorism. And he's made frequent trips to the areas devastated by hurricanes Katrina and Rita to offset criticism of the government's initial response to Katrina.

Of all the problems facing the country, the war in Iraq is the one that troubles some Bush supporters the most.

"I approve of what the president is doing, but it's a mixed decision," said Richard Saulinski, a Republican from Orland Park, Ill. "We should get out of Iraq. It seems like there's no light at the end of the tunnel. I just think we're dealing with a culture we don't really understand."

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WASHINGTON - Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's legal team asked a court Friday to throw out his indictment, arguing that a Texas district attorney "attempted to browbeat and coerce" grand jurors into filing criminal charges.

I thought browbeat and coerce were DeLay's middle names.

Federal prosecutors have accepted an offer from presidential adviser Karl Rove to give 11th-hour testimony in the case of a CIA officer's leaked identity but have warned they cannot guarantee he won't be indicted, according to people directly familiar with the investigation....

The U.S. attorney's manual requires prosecutors not to bring witnesses before a grand jury if there is a possibility of future criminal charges unless they are notified in advance that their grand jury testimony can be used against them in a later indictment.

Rove has already made at least three grand jury appearances and his return at this late stage in the investigation is unusual.

The prosecutor did not give Rove similar warnings before his earlier grand jury appearances.

Allard (R-CO)
Bond (R-MO)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Stevens (R-AK)

Meanwhile the hardcore Bush loyalists kinda have their backs pressed up against the wall, with big, round, white eyes -- like a bunch of guards in an asylum for the violently insane who've just realized the Thorazine shots aren't working any more.

I finally got around to reading George Lakoff's "Don't Think of an Elephant," the classic short version of how the right has framed the political discourse over the past couple of decades.

Lakoff also explains how the reality of those on the Radical Right differs from Progessives like me.

I can accept that we have different realities. I happen to think that theirs verges on the dillusional, but that's another story.

The real problem is that their reality, their values, if you will, says that it's okay for them to tell a shit-load of Orwellian lies in order to further their values-based agenda.

When I heard that the senior U.S. generals in Iraq said that the number of combat-ready Iraqi battalions had dropped from 3 to 1 over the past few months, I wasn't especially surprised.

Today, Kos notes that President Bush is "encouraged by the increasing size and capability of the Iraqi security forces."

Black is white. Up is down.

Let us pray.