GOP STRATEGIST, WASHINGTON POST REPORTERS: WAR, CHENEY SHOOTING ARE ESSENTIALLY NATURAL DISASTERS

Here's a passage from a front-page story in today's Washington Post by Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei (emphasis mine):

Even under optimistic scenarios, aides believe that Bush's ratings may never rise above the mid-forties, and privately are mulling contingencies if Democrats win the House. Whenever the White House thinks it is turning a corner, it runs into trouble, such as a 10-day period in February when Cheney shot a friend in a hunting accident, Republicans rebelled against Arab management of U.S. ports and militants blew up a Shiite shrine in Iraq.

"The president's run into a perfect political storm where the confluence of natural disasters from last fall, gasoline prices, staff changes, the continuing war in Iraq, all are giving conservatives a defensive fatigue," said Kenneth Khachigian, a California GOP strategist who served in Ronald Reagan's White House. "And let's put immigration in there, too. . . . There's just wave after wave washing over them at this point."

There it is: Things people in the administration actually do (staff changes, the Cheney shooting) are things that just happen to them. The results of their actions (the Iraq quagmire, outrage over the Dubai ports deal) aren't their fault (and aren't the fault of those poor fatigued conservatives in the rubber-stamp GOP Congress). Bush and Congress haven't managed the borders well? Not their fault -- the immigration issue was just visited upon them by the gods. And let's not even get into the question of whether Katrina was merely a natural disaster or, after a while, a government disaster.

When a GOP strategist talks like this, it tells you what spoiled children Republicans are, incapable of even imagining that thay should take responsibility for their own deeds. And when top Beltway reporters type up a statement like this and nod in agreement, you can see they're completely mesmerized by these spoiled GOP brats, still believing whatever they say.