by TChris

Is the White House melting down?

For months now, the same administration whose members once prided themselves on never contradicting one another in public has been riven by conflicting pronouncements. Senior officials keep missing opportunities to keep their signals straight, prompting cases of vicious backbiting that one senior member of Mr. Bush's national security staff said with disgust the other day "make us sound like Democrats.''

If "some of us sound like Democrats" means "some of us are telling the truth," more power to them. Maybe the White House can't stay on message because the message is so often false or nonexistent.

Even President Bush -- who likes to criticize John Kerry for "flip-flopping" -- has difficulty staying on message, or figuring out what the message is, as evidenced by his varying and indecisive descriptions of the degree of sovereignty Iraq will enjoy after June 30.

It has all sown such confusion that a European foreign minister, asked on a recent visit what he thought of the latest administration plan for the handover, smiled and responded, "Last week's or this week's?''

The linked article recaps some of the administration's internal disagreements and external flip-flops, then asks: "how did an administration that made an art form of singing from the hymnal suddenly lose its rhythm?"