Susan Estrich
Friday, Mar. 26, 2004

Bush can't survive it.

Clarke's telling the truth.

For God's sake, he's a Republican

I'll be sad to see him go.

These are the conversations I can't escape.

I talk politics for a living. I don't look to do it in my free time, or in the line at the market, or while the surgeon is checking me out, or at the bookstore, or the schoolyard. Most of the time, people respect that.

But not when something extraordinary is happening.

This week, something is. And it's still building.

I can't believe Condi Rice has time for Sean Hannity and not for the 9-11 Commission.

I can't believe Dick Cheney says the counter terrorism adviser was out of the loop.

I can't believe he wrote a memo a week before.

There are lots of things lots of people can't believe.

I go to three bookstores looking for THE book. In the third, the woman tells me that in the years she has worked there, no book has ever sold so quickly.

There is now a section. Right next to it, there is a new one by John Dean. "Worse Than Watergate" is the title. I have no idea what is in it. Does it matter?

It was just last week that the Bush people were geniuses and the Kerry people were fools, that Kerry was skiing in Sun Valley, thinking VP, and Bush was in week one of the six week effort to define Kerry as weak on defense, an effort predicated on the fact that people were paying attention to politics right now, and would tune out in June.

They were right about the paying attention part.

People are.

Holding a convention in New York City to coincide as closely as possible with the Anniversary of Richard Clarke's memo doesn't seem like such a great idea after all. Neither does running on terrorism, or the war in Iraq, or being the war president. Or credibility. Other than that ...

We used to always say in Massachusetts that John Kerry was the luckiest guy in politics. Talented, but also lucky. Takes both. Down the road, the quotes from this book and this man are so damning when put next to George Bush's first ad that it's hard imagine any answer to them, and easy to imagine stunning ads based on them.

It is just beginning to sink in that there was a man in the White House trying to raise the alarm, and they wouldn't listen; that 9-11 could have been stopped, and they wouldn't meet with him. And now when he comes out to speak the truth, they are trying to destroy him. This team is going to get re-elected? Sorry, guys.

I am a pessimist when it comes to my side winning. Believe me. I know what losing looks like, feels like, what the handwriting is. And this is it.

Most of the people pulling me aside are Bush people. They think they've lost it. They're scared. They have reason to be. Yes, it's eight months. Yes, a lot can happen. But what is unfolding now is a very big deal, and the view that Bush's presidency is over, if it sets in, may be difficult to undo.