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As it bore down on New Orleans, Hurricane Gustav evoked powerful memories of President Bush's most colossal domestic failure. But it also did Republicans a giant favor by giving them an excuse to knock Bush off the prime-time lineup at their national convention -- and avoid an appearance by Vice President Cheney altogether.

Editor's note: Dan Froomkin is taking Labor Day off. He'll return on Tuesday, Sept. 2.

Apparently taking his cues from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is calling for some limits on what President Bush can do in his country.

This is what it's come to. On Monday, President Bush issued a statement very sternly calling on Russian leaders not to recognize the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent countries.

President Bush yesterday telegraphed in the clearest possible way that he's not interested in turning down the heat on the simmering geopolitical conflict with Russia. Quite the contrary. He's sending Vice President Cheney to harry Russia's borders.

It's not exactly news that President Bush dismisses the advice of his military commanders when it doesn't suit him -- and did so, most notably, when he ordered a surge in troops to Iraq early last year over the intense objections of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his top commanders in the region.

President Bush would like you to believe that he deserves the credit for there not having been a second domestic terrorist attack on his watch.

There are new signs today that President Bush is pulling out all the stops to capture or kill Osama bin Laden before his term is up -- or better yet, before the November election.

Wondering how President Bush rationalizes his conviction that history will vindicate him?

Briefly emerging from his near-invisibility during the nation's terrifying financial crisis, President Bush this morning offered brief, unsubstantive and unpersuasive assurances.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's evident cluelessness when asked in an interview yesterday if she agreed with the Bush Doctrine is appropriately being seen as emblematic of her ignorance of foreign policy.

If you're the Democratic Congress, what do you give the enormously unpopular lame-duck Republican president in the midst of a massive financial crisis? How about a big wet kiss and a long-sought foreign policy victory?

With his presidency really hitting Americans where it hurts -- in the pocketbook -- the public is turning against George W. Bush in greater numbers than ever.

President Bush put what was left of his influence on the line in his push to get Congress to pass a massive financial bailout. So yesterday, when House Republicans killed his proposal, it wasn't just the stock market that took its biggest tumble in history.

The Justice Department's new investigative report into the removal of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 points a steely and incriminating finger over the stone wall -- toward the White House.

The emergency White House summit that President Bush called as a special favor to Republican presidential candidate John McCain backfired spectacularly yesterday afternoon, leaving what had appeared to be an emerging bipartisan deal in shatters.

In a rare prime-time speech last night, President Bush tried to terrify the American public into supporting his administration's proposed $700 billion Wall Street bailout. Given that some sort of compromise proposal was apparently already being worked out with congressional leaders, that might have been overkill.

So this is what happens when the president of the United States has virtually no credibility left.

Looking back on the wreckage of the Bush era, there is one undeniable bright spot: It's been a very good time to be a fat cat. A consistent result of virtually every major Bush policy, from tax cuts to war, has been to enrich the already wealthy.

Does President Bush's support for a radical financial bailout represent a reversal in his political ideology? Not likely.