In "Bunker Time" AS quotes Novak's widely reported assessment that the WH is now looking isolated, like what happened to Jimmy Carter (not Nixon), except that Jimmy did with great pain, discipline (patience), and political sacrifice (his own) what was strategically relevant, while Bush still seems to many to have not fully grappled with the quagmire he and his have created.
The 'long denouement' is another constitutional failing of term limits that perhaps Sandy Levinson will take up (if he hasn't already).
In any case, it's around this time in their term that Presidents historically have found ... International Relations. I had thought that the tour of South America was the first sign, but I'm less sure of it now. We'll see.
link: Bootstrapping Andrew Sullivan
