There's going to be a point of realization, sometime soon, within the next year I think, among Republicans that this Presidency is over. This isn't going to be some ordinary lame-duckedness that two-term Presidents go through. This is going to be the dirty-bomb ending that preceded Nixon's demise. Every effort by Bush is going to be championed and doubted vociferously and the clash will continue. Respect for the other side erodes constantly.

It's not going to necessarily lead to a premature end of the Bush's term. It isn't about impeachment. It's about a President who has lead his party to dividing a nation in a way that casts Americans against themselves. It's about leadership that has left the right pissed off about the left, and the left pissed off about the right, and no atmosphere to find any middle ground. It's all about fear, and it's nothing about hope. And it's about an inability to get anything important done - most importantly, starting to heal the divisions that are fracturing America and the rest of the world.

Bush is sunk. He cannot be a uniter at this point, he has no credibility with the other side to be such - and that is required. He can continue to divide, but someone is going to have to lead this country in 2008, and Republicans are going to want it to be them. There is no hope for Bush's numbers to go up substantially at this point short of another foreign attack on this country, and even that will bring considerable if perhaps muted doubt and debate about the cause. There will be a subtle effort to push Bush back further into the shadows, and it will be widely practiced.

Somebody prominent - somebody with aspirations - in the Republican Party is going to find a cause or event to position themselves as the anti-Bush. It is going to happen, and I would bet that it'll be sooner rather than later. That person's visibility and approval numbers are likely to go WAY up. I don't know who it's going to be, but I bet whoever it is will use the 2006 elections to position himself/herself. No way it will be Bill Frist - it's too late for him. Nor anyone in the Bush Administration - they are tarred by the same brush as well. But it'll be somebody with political skills and a background that allows him/her to push Bush around.

That's an opportunity and a risk for Democrats. In 2008, the opponent won't be Bush. The Republican lite-version of Anti-Bush would be a much tougher candidate. Running against the 8 years of Bush won't be enough. The Democratic candidates will need to bring substantive plans for the future.