The David Souter example - and to a lesser extent Anthony Kennedy - have made conservatives exceedingly skeptical of any urge to just 'trust me,'

By any measure, Conrad Burns is in deep trouble in his efforts to win re-election.

Not only is it not unusual for a president to have an approval rating at 38 percent, it's almost predictable. Every president has rough patches, it says nothing about the ultimate historical judgment.

This is just a screw-up. I think the base will, after some initial bluster, give him the benefit of the doubt, once they have the facts.

There's weariness and frustration. But that's different from active, nationwide protests.

It's hard to spin this as anything other than another problem dropped on the pile of troubles our side faces now. Bad news tends to come in bunches, and we've had a bunch lately.

It's a combination of weariness over Iraq, concern about gas prices, worry about jobs being sent overseas and other factors that lead people to be in a funk. When people are in a funk, they take it out on the guy in charge, regardless of whether he's responsible or not.

the most challenging of his presidency, but not that unusual from a historical perspective.

always underestimate George Bush, and they are still doing it.

A lot of it depends upon how the program evolves over the next few months. Every major program is going to have growing pains. That's almost inevitable. The real question is not what seniors think of the program today as much as what they think of it at the end of the enrollment period.