Another Sign Of Shifting Momentum

Dana Milbank also has a piece in the Washington Post today about the positive developments that have been happening in the past weeks that are improving the political situation for the White House. There is a very, very revealing fact in the article. Chuck "Where's That Camera?" Schumer was visibly nonplussed by the recent events. If you've knock Schumer back a step, things are going very well indeed.

Within hours of hearing yesterday morning that Karl Rove wouldn't be prosecuted in the CIA leak case, Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), the chief of the Democrats' campaign to retake the Senate, hurried to the press gallery to blunt the damage.

But it was no use. "Senator," MSNBC's Tom Curry needled Schumer, "as you know, the president has nicknames that he applies to people, and one of the nicknames he applied to Karl Rove was 'Turd Blossom.' "

"Cherry Blossom?" Schumer asked, puzzled.

"Turd Blossom," Curry repeated. "In terms of Rove's career as a political strategist in the fall campaign, will this lead to a new flowering of Turd Blossom?"

"I'm not going to comment," said the nonplussed New Yorker.

But the earthy image — a Texas desert flower that flourishes in manure — was a good metaphor for Rove and the GOP yesterday: Both were, at least momentarily, blooming from the political muck in which they have been mired.

….

Asked by reporters about the recent good news for Bush, Schumer was grudging. "These few developments — and, for instance, the Zarqawi one is one I welcome — don't remove the cloud of incompetence that is over the administration's head," he said. "I don't think the administration can really recover until they change their entire way of operating."

But however fervently Schumer wished away Bush's good news, Republicans sensed a shift in momentum. Sen. John Warner (Va.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, even felt comfortable enough to brush off reporters' questions about the alleged Haditha massacre. "I think the secretary [Donald H. Rumsfeld] is correct in waiting" to brief Congress, Warner said. Asked when Pentagon officials might be called before his committee, he replied: "At this time, I don't think anybody can give an estimate on that. But I'm sure that they're forthcoming; they're not reluctant to come up and provide the witnesses. Not at all."

Interesting how much coverage this is getting today, isn't it?