It doesn't work anymore.

When I look at this Cindy Sheehan thing, one thought keeps coming back to me again and again:

I can't believe they're this stupid.

Holy CRAP, they're stupid.

The reaction to this from the Bushites has not only been cold and unfeeling, but unbelievably boneheaded.

Cindy Sheehan is DESTROYING Bush's carefully crafted media image. The "nice guy." The "people person." She is single-handedly ripping off his veneer of affability and exposing the bastard underneath.

And all Bush had to do to diffuse the whole situation was to send a spokeman out and invite her in. That's all. That simple. Let her spend the night rather than sleeping in a ditch. For God's sake, talk to her.

Instead, he leaves her outside in the ditch like Lazarus at the rich man's gate.

And if the many right-wing media sycophants had any sense, they would say something like, "We disagree with Cindy Sheehan, but we honor her son's sacrifice, we respect her right to protest, and we hope she finds some peace."

But nope - that would be too easy. That would require an ounce of decency and humanity.

Instead:

1) Bush goes into hiding;

2) His minions go on full-bore attack.

What a brilliant strategy.

You know what I think is happening? I think that Bush spent his entire first term getting a totally free ride from the media. He lied and lied and lied and wasn't called on it by the mainstream media. He spun, and the media dutifully repeated the spin, and allowed no dissenting voices to get through the noise machine. He put an image out there, and media gladly painted him according to the image he wished to project.

And he thinks that's the way it's supposed to work.

In his first term, if HE ignored it, the press ignored it. What the extreme right-wing said quickly became conventional media wisdom.

But it doesn't work anymore.

Bush, Rove, et al are one-trick ponies.

They only have one strategy. Attack.

They know only one game: PR.

It doesn't work anymore.

And they may never figure it out.