September 2004…

Kevin Drum: The Scandals Finally Break

What do we have to look forward to if George W. Bush is elected to a second term? One word: scandal.

Don’t believe me? Consider the highlight reel of reelected presidents over the past 50 years. Ike won a second term and watched in dismay as his chief of staff was forced to resign over a vicuña coat. Richard Nixon buried George McGovern in 1972 and then resigned a year and a half later when Watergate finally caught up to him. Ronald Reagan sweated out his second term wondering if he’d be impeached over Iran-Contra. Bill Clinton didn’t have to wonder: Two years after his reelection, he was defending himself in the first impeachment trial in over a century.

Coincidence? Don’t believe it. There are three good reasons to think that second terms naturally lend themselves to scandal, and George Bush is almost preternaturally vulnerable to every one of them

October 2005…

Washington Post: Scandals Take Toll On Bush’s 2nd Term

A series of scandals involving some of the most powerful Republicans in Washington have converged to disrupt President Bush’s agenda, distract aides and allies, and exacerbate political problems for an already weakened administration, according to party strategists and White House advisers.

With Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove returning to a grand jury as early as today, associates said the architect of Bush’s presidency has been preoccupied with his legal troubles, a diversion that some say contributed to the troubled handling of Harriet Miers’s nomination to the Supreme Court. White House officials are privately bracing for the possibility that Rove or other officials could be indicted in the next two weeks.