Bush is still toast

From Bob Herbert in today's NY Times:

Here's George W. Bush's problem. How does a president win re-election when all the news the voters are seeing is bad?

Herbert goes on to cite all sorts of bad news from the headlines: Multiple disasters in Iraq, high oil prices, shortage of flu vaccine, bad economic numbers. And while I agree with Herbert that the bad news will probably sink Bush next week, I don't think that it's really the bad news in itself--it's the fact that it is finally being reported. What generally makes headlines isn't generally what we need to know; it's what the powerful people who control the world want us to know. For three and a half years, they didn't want us to know that George W. Bush was a total screw-up. Now they do. He's toast. Even if (when) he tries to steal the election again, the media, and possibly even the Democrats, won't let it happen as easily as it did in 2000. But I suspect that on November 3 a lot of people will be wondering why the polls showed that this failed incumbent even had a chance.