Here is that reply:
As a result of the Bush administration's rope- a- dope strategy, we very nearly lost the war in Iraq, we are isolated in the world, we lost both houses of Congress in 2006, we have put an extreme leftist who could actually be a Manchurian Marxist in the White House and, finally, we have so damaged the Republican brand and the legitimacy of conservative principles that we are probably condemned to wander in the wilderness for a generation.
So your question, why in heaven's name did George Bush fail so pathetically to defend his administration and fight his corner, is apposite and one that I have been asking on these threads for four years. You can imagine my astonishment when I witnessed here in Germany a Karl Rove press conference, I think on CNN International, in which he replied to a question about why the administration did not defend itself against charges such as, "Bush lied and people died." He said he actually went to President Bush and told him that the administration must fight back that it was threatening its entire agenda domestically as well as in Iraq. As inconceivable as it sounds, Bush forbade Rove to wage such a campaign saying that it would divert the administration from other agenda items.
