Bush used “stay the course” until recent weeks when it became clear that it was becoming a political problem. “The characterization of, you know, ‘it’s stay the course’ is about a quarter right,” Bush complained at an Oct. 11 news conference. ” ‘Stay the course’ means keep doing what you’re doing. My attitude is: Don’t do what you’re doing if it’s not working — change. ‘Stay the course’ also means don’t leave before the job is done.”

isn’t it obvious?

keep doing what you’re doing, unless what you’re doing isn’t working. in which case, stop doing what you’re doing, but keep doing something.

with news of google’s recent purchase of youtube, there are whispers that this is a little too reminiscent of the dot-com bubble and subsequent crash of the late 90s. but aside from the large amount of stock on the table, it’s nothing like the past. the dot-com crash wasn’t simply caused by the large deals between big names, it was a result of all the small- and medium-sized deals that were all style and no substance. at a time when everyone was “discovering” the web and trying to create the next amazon or yahoo, every half-assed scheme was greenlit by venture capitalists. it didn’t matter how you got there, because you’d get $3 million just to try. business strategies took a distant second to hype and/or superbowl commercials. it was a fun time to be in the business, but it made the downfall that much more harsh.
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the whole of washington is still abuzz about bob woodward’s latest book, and his portrayal of the entire bush administration as bumbling, warmongering idiots. of course, the denials of these “fictionalized” events have already been issued; it seems such a far cry from when he was once loved universally by team america:

Woodward’s previous two books were so laudatory that White House aides gave them to each other as Christmas gifts and one of them, “Plan of Attack,” was listed on the Bush campaign’s re-election Web site as recommended reading.

truth be told, it is kind of hard to remember exactly what happened 5 years ago, especially when your boss was on vacation all the damn time, and your job is basically to go to meetings every single day.

the real question is, why now? why not 2, even 3 years ago when it was finally in plain view that we invaded iraq under (to put it nicely) mistaken circumstances? even arianna huffington has made some valid points, sadly enough. is it because the president’s approval rating is in freefall? why so close to the fall election? could the pulitzer prize-winning journalist simply be following popular opinion?

regardless of whatever agenda woodward may or may not have, if the democrats can’t take advantage of this and “overly-friendly” congressmen come november, there’s no hope for them at all.