Crescendo

Well, a quick tour around the media outlets brings item after item after item that builds up the crescendo in the media campaigns. Against Republicans, of course. The New York Times, having failed to score points with their latest "November surprise" turn to compiling all the bad news they can find and putting it all together in an article that epitomizes the media's efforts to drag the Democrats across the finish line. Call it a one-stop Bush bash.

Within hours, President Bush mocked Democrats for predicting that the administration’s tax and spending policies would wreck the economy.

“If the Democrats’ election predictions are as good as their economic predictions, we’re going to have a good day on November the seventh,” Mr. Bush said, drawing a long cheer from a crowd in Joplin, Mo., where he was campaigning for Senator Jim Talent, who is in a close race.

“The facts are in,” Mr. Bush said at another campaign stop on Friday. “The tax cuts have led to a strong and growing economy, and this morning, we got more proof of that.”

As Mr. Bush was attempting to shift the election debate to the positive domestic news, however, Vice President Dick Cheney was addressing head-on what polls showed was the Republicans’ greatest political liability: the administration’s determination to follow through on the war regardless of public opinion or election outcomes.

“Full speed ahead,” Mr. Cheney said in an interview with ABC News that was taped for broadcast Sunday, two days before the election.

“It may not be popular with the public,” he continued. “It doesn’t matter in the sense that we have to continue the mission and do what we think is right. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re not running for office.”

Although battle plans always change in times of war, the vice president said, “I think, again, we’ve got the basic strategy right.”

Later, at a campaign stop in Iowa, Mr. Bush addressed the subject of the war, calling the cause “noble and necessary” and accusing the Democrats of “second-guessing” without offering an alternative.

“I’m going to tell you something point-blank,” Mr. Bush said. “If I didn’t think we could win, I’d get our troops out.”

Separately, two former Pentagon advisers who were closely identified with the argument for invasion, Richard N. Perle and Ken Adelman, told Vanity Fair magazine that they would not have supported the invasion if they had known how “incompetently” the administration would manage it. Both have previously criticized the administration’s conduct of the war.

There is this shared conventional wisdom in the media, of course. There has been for years now, frankly. That "wisdom" has been applied in an extremely unwise fashion. The relentless attacks on all things Bush have an effect not just on Bush but on the United States itself. The fact is, the economy is enormously powerful, it is still the best in the world by far and away. The fact is that a cut and run from Iraq will lead to a bloodbath and a victory for the Islamists. The fact is that even if the Democrats do win on Tuesday they will have to deal with a worsening situation that they helped create.