The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity I need!

Peter Baker of the Washington Post can kiss my hairy white ass.

In a White House that had virtually forgotten what good news looks like, the past few weeks have been refreshing. A Republican won a much-watched special congressional election. President Bush recruited a Wall Street heavy hitter as Treasury secretary. U.S. forces killed the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. And now the architect of the Bush presidency has avoided criminal charges.

The question is whether this latest updraft in Bush's fortunes will last much longer than the president's surprise trip yesterday to Iraq. Bush took full command of the political stage with his five-hour appearance in Baghdad, just days after the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and used it to showcase a new Iraqi government he hopes to turn the war over to eventually. Yet in the end, some analysts noted, it will matter only if this new government can heal societal schisms and stand up effective security forces.

This President isn't in the popularity dumpster because of dumb luck, the twist of fate or bad "fortune." This President is almost universally disliked among Americans because of his own actions. The decisions he's made from day one; whether ignoring the memo saying "Bin Laden determined to strike in the U.S." to invading Iraq have been spectacularly stupid and monumentally idiotic.

For some strange reason the media continues to be committed to a Bush rebound. A true rebound would come if this administration suddenly became competent and enacted a reasonable foreign and domestic policy geared towards adults.

That ain't gonna happen.