John Podhoretz on President Bush

"(T)he president is losing support from conservatives and Republicans. There are all sorts of theories about why this is true, like how they don't like his spending plans and don't like his immigration policies. Fine, but he had the same immigration plan in 2004 and spent like a sailor in his first term and still had over 90 percent support during that election year.
So here's a theory: Republicans and conservatives have grown weary of defending Bush. They've been fighting and fighting and fighting for years, and they see no letup in the hostility toward him or in the energy and determination of his critics. Faced with that implacable opposition, they've grown not disaffected but disheartened.
They thought they were on a winning team. Now they're not so sure, and they're feeling let down, the way passionate sports fans do when their guys stumble and fall in the second half of the season. In this case, though, the economic data and other markers of progress suggest that the second half isn't actually going badly at all."