KEY POINTS:
It's "shock and awe" - this time at the White House - as Americans exert their own version of "regime change" on President George W. Bush. Confronted with a Texas-style whupping at the Democrats' hands, Bush initially seemed just as non-plussed as his nemesis Saddam Hussein when his
power base was cut from under him.
He was exhibiting the classic responses of a political narcissist whose omnipotence has been smashed.
Top-gun strut put to one side. And grateful for dad's team - the bunch of old Washington pros that beefed up the Bush 1 presidency - to roll into town in the guise of former Secretary of States James Baker's Iraq Study Group and begin the process of figuring out how the US can extricate itself from the quagmire.
Bush is not yet at the psychological point where he can concede publicly that the Iraq war is a long-running mistake which Americans now measure by the body-bag count. Iraqis measure it by the lengthy time it is taking for their imposed democracy to flower into personal freedoms for them rather than sectional violence.
He may never be.
I suspect just such a concession would be too much for Bush's personality to withstand. We saw this with Bill Clinton when he initially denied having sex with "that woman", Monica Lewinsky. In the end Clinton 'fessed up to the white lies he told to keep peace on the homefront.
But confessing that intelligence documents were doctored to make the imperative for an invasion in the first place is real impeachment territory.
It now seems pretty clear that Bush's public and private faces have been operating in what the techies might call a state of "extreme disconnect" for some time now.
The Washington drum is that Bush had recently privately conceded Iraq has turned into a damn mess, all the while running the line that the US needs to stay there till the job is done and democracy assured for the long-term.
During the mid-term elections campaign he stuck by vice-president Dick Cheney, whose judgment has increasingly been called into question, and maintained, even up to a few days ago, that Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (who famously predicted the Iraq stoush would be over within a very short time) was not for the chop.
But as Bush 'fessed up after his "thumping", he "lied" (at least where Rummie, as the 74-year-old Defence Secretary is known, was concerned).
Now the president is hanging his defence minister out to dry for the Administration's failed Iraq strategy even before the hangman's noose tightens around Saddam's own neck.
Rummie took his sacking like a gentleman. But strategist Karl Rove and other Bush strongmen, like UN ambassador John Bolton, may yet join the White House's body-bag tally.
The great beauty of the US system is that its president is constrained by a written constitution and the separation of powers. But the effective operation of those constraints does not occur in isolation.
The politician who boasts he is a "master of low expectations" should not be surprised to find Americans took him at his word. They clearly expect so little from him that they inflicted a thumping on Bush's Republican Party in the mid-term US elections putting the onus on the Democratic majority to exert leadership.
The contrast with his nemesis is telling.
Unlike Saddam, the "Decider" has had his political powers constrained by the real "Deciders", his countrymen. There will be no "Impeach Bush" move by his opponents.
Clearing up the Iraq mess and re-establishing the US international reputation will take precedence over any short-term desire to bring Bush to book for the Administration's dissembling over weapons of mass destruction, the revenge exposure of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity, the overriding of military top brass views, the failed hunt for Osama bin Laden, and all the other misjudgments which resulted in what Bob Woodward called the "state of denial".
It is important to all of us that this correction process does take place within the US and that any other threatened incursions - think Iran, think North Korea - are appropriately weighed.
I hope Bush also takes time to ponder just who is in the foxhole now, and why. And that he does draw on his personable strengths to make good on his promise to work in a bipartisan manner with the Democratic victors.
The rational wing of the Republican Party knows it has to control their lame-duck leader and ensure the President does make good on his pledge to operate a consensus style approach - particularly on Iraq.
The party does not want the last two years of the Bush presidency to be marked by further deterioration of the US place in the world.
The US has paid a big price for Bush's tin ear. But it is also up to the rest of us to create the space for Bush to move.
Invite him to establish stronger connections - even with small countries like New Zealand - and win back for the US the respect we like to accord that great country.
