Asking what was the tipping point in President Bush's plunge into the popularity cesspool, as Josh did at TPM Cafe, highlights the undue power of the media in determining public reaction to events. Katrina probably was the tipping point not because it was the worst thing the Bush Administration has done in its six years of malfeasance, but because it was the first time the media actually portrayed Bush as having done something wrong.

Ask yourself what is the worst thing the Bush/GOP Administration has done and you have a long list of contenders: the Iraq War, torture, rendition, Medicare and Social Security deform, Katrina, transgressions against the Constitution, corruption, the crippling of gov't programs and institutions, misappropriation and theft of tax monies in Iraq, NOLA, and elsewhere, etc. With proper media attention any one of these could have become a deal breaker, like an affair in the Oval Office.

Remember how Clinton's Health Care reform initiative was covered and made to look foolish in the media (as well it may have been), and how much political capital the Clintons lost as a result? It was a big deal. Bush's Medicare reform got much less serious coverage in spite of being much more duplicitous and heinous.

A better question is, What events in the six years of the Bush Adminstration demonstrate the best repudiation of neo-conservative ideology and how can we exploit those real-world repudiations to help tear down the entire edifice of neocon hallucination that still has a death grip on the American public's imagination?

For example:

The War in Iraq - Neocons see the military as a tool for imposing American will on recalcitrant nations/powers. Is this an effective way to use our power? The neocon belief that anything the gov't does can be better done by private interests begs a serious investigation into the effectiveness of private contracting in Iraq. The neocon approach to all international diplomacy is screw them, we'll do what we want. Is this effective or wise?

Medicare and Social Security reform - Neocons believe that gov't can do nothing well, and are dedicated to bringing the private sector in to balance, if not obviate the function of gov't with private sector incursions. How's that going?

Terry Schaivo and the values agenda - From abortion rights to homosexual marriage to questions of medical ethics, neocons seem to know what's right and wrong. Back here on earth real people are dealing with profound life-altering issues such as birth and end-of-life questions; are there better ways to consider these human problems?

My (naive) hope is that there was not a Hollywood "tipping point" when the American people saw what they needed to see on TV such that they could begin questioning the validity of the idiot-charm of the neocon vision and its Oval Office Cheerleaders (one of the few things G. Bush really is qualified to do), but rather that people have been slowly, one by one, noticing how hollow and selfish and ultimately craven the neocon ideology really is. They look out and see problems with many aspects of the neocon nightmare and they begin to see how it's leading us to a brink where not just we Americans but perhaps the entire world is in jeopardy, and it's time to get real, get generous with our fellow humans (and the rest of creation) and figure out a new way of being in the world.

Okay, I guess I must have drunk some of whatever those neocons have been drinking (definitely not Kool-Aid). Herradura? Maybe I'm being dreamily optimistic, but it sure would be nice if we could use all this bad news to lay waste to some of the neocon notions that got us to these tipping points in the first place.