GOP REACTS TO FREDO

Fredo's lousy poll numbers (39% even from FAUX News) and many errors since his re-election (Schiavo, Social Security, Katrina, UAE/Port deal) have led the GOP to 2 different tactics, denial and re-labeling.

From an AP article about the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, one BushBot gave the denial position:

"The president is a good man," said Jim Frazier of Memphis. "But you've got to wonder how well served he is."

Yes Mr. Frazier, and the same was said before about otherwise unbelievable events:

"We thought (probably because we wanted to think that way) that Stalin did not knew about the senseless violence against Communists and the Soviet intelligentsia," Ehrenburg admitted in his memoirs. A long-time Communist such as Vsevolod Meyerhold told Ehrenburg that the repression was concealed from Stalin. Boris Pasternak too shared this common illusion. Ehrenburg came across him one night while they were both walking their dogs. "[Pasternak] waved his arms as he stood among the snowdrifts: 'If only someone would tell Stalin everything.'"

The second approach, re-labeling, has been used by Sean Hannity on his radio show but this is the first time I've seen a major GOP politician use it (from the same AP article):

"I am Sam Brownback and I am a Ronald Reagan Republican," said the Kansas senator, perhaps the most conservative potential 2008 candidate.