Even worse for Bush, now that his job-approval ratings are sinking, the Democratic candidates suddenly seem a lot more serious and deserving of respectful coverage and attention. They aren't just running for the honor of keeling over before the crafty and well-funded Karl Rove. They are actually running for president.

Two polls help illustrate Bush's predicament. The first measures Bush's overall favorability ratings. They started out very high and then fell slowly but steadily during the first eight months after Bush's inaugural. After Sept. 11, they shot up. Gradually, they started drooping before bouncing back up when we invaded Iraq. Now they are drooping again and will probably only perk up slightly with Bush putting Uday's scalp on the wall.

The second interesting piece of polling data comes from Americans asked whether they would vote for Bush or a generic Democratic candidate in 2004. Bush's consistently unimpressive numbers on this measure have always lagged behind his general approval figures. The explanation, says pollster Jeremy Rosner, of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, is that approval ratings look at how good a job one did in the past -- not who should lead in the future. As of today, Bush is basically tied with a generic Democratic candidate.

In other words, when the country is not at war or under attack, this president is not a very popular guy. Worse, much of his popularity stems from what he did in the past, not on whether people think he'll do a good job leading in the future.

The criticism of Bush had slowly died down by the beginning of this week, even when Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security advisor, admitted on Tuesday that he had learned of the CIA's concerns over uranium back in the fall. Moreover, the Democrats don't control either house of Congress and thus can't stage congressional investigations, eliminating what was the Republicans' favorite method of going after Clinton.

But to stabilize his popularity and ultimately win the coming election, Bush still needs something that he can talk about or do. His popularity goes up during combat, but starting another war -- with, say, previous candidates like Syria or Iran -- seems highly unlikely unless hard and fast evidence emerges that either poses an imminent threat. Moreover, Bush's checks bounce when he moves to the economy, since jobs are down and the deficit is soaring, in no small part because of the administration's tax cuts. Furthermore, on almost all domestic issues, now including taxes, the public trusts Democrats more to do the right thing than it trusts Republicans.

Bush is similarly stymied at attacking his opposition. His first option is to paint all Democrats as antiwar in Iraq and implicitly in support of a maniac whose brutality becomes clearer with each mass grave found. This strategy will have particular currency if the situation in Baghdad improves, the bloodletting stops, and troops stop telling reporters that they want to go home. Many Democrats agree that Bush can get traction here. "Most Americans aren't lawyers or arms inspectors, but they do know an enemy when they see one," says Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic group.

The problem for Bush is that almost all of the top-tier presidential candidates were pro-war. The big difference between their position and the White House's was that the Democrats wanted to act multilaterally and with the support of the United Nations. That position looks eminently reasonable now, with Americans making up nearly all of the coalition forces patrolling Iraq and with the realization that Saddam almost certainly did not pose an imminent threat to this country.

This is a clear distinction. If Bush is held to a high sincerity standard, he and his allies will gain little ground by trying to obfuscate it, particularly if the Democrats can refrain from appearing to enjoy themselves at the nation's expense -- a mistake the Republican impeachment leaders made -- and rooting for further bedlam in Baghdad. The jury's still out on whether Bush's position was wiser than Howard Dean's total opposition to war. But it's increasingly hard to argue that Bush's March position -- shoot immediately and do it alone -- was wiser than most of the other Democrats'.

Bush could also try to tie everything he does to his shining moment combating al-Qaida. This is already a clear Republican strategy, as they make plans for their 2004 convention in New York City as close to the three-year anniversary of the attacks as possible. It's also clearly on their talking points. This Sunday on "Meet the Press," Tim Russert asked House Speaker Dennis Hastert, "How troubled are you by the situation in Iraq?"

Hastert responded: "Well, Tim, I think you have to look at the big picture. You know, when 9/11 happened, almost two years ago now, we saw two planes go into the World Trade Tower, we saw a plane go in the Pentagon. I was looking out my window in the Capitol and saw this smoke go across the Mall."

Hastert went on for a while until Russert cut him off by bluntly asking whether Saddam was connected to Sept. 11.

As reporters know, and Hastert conceded, al-Qaida and Saddam aren't linked in more than superficial ways. Plus, when it comes to actually combating the threats of al-Qaida, Democrats have more strongly supported homeland security funding than Bush. Again, Bush's principal chance to make the charge stick of Democratic softness here is to fudge the truth or at least walk in circles around it. A plausible strategy last winter, it's unlikely to work in the post-yellowcake era.

"George Bush is a nice man who loves his family and goes to church every week, but that isn't the main issue anymore," says Democratic strategist Anita Dunn.

Like Clinton, Bush will mainly gain points now by governing well. And that, to date, is one area where the president has generally come up short.

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