Peter David puts forth the question of when W's administration jumped the shark. And there was a point to this article that points out that Katrina when when he lost it with the American people. The only good thing about this economic meltdown is that it didn't happen after the election, where it's likely we would've had a different outcome. If Katrina happened a year earlier, what do you think would've happened?
Back to the article (which is actually a summary of this Vanity Fair piece), I liked this quote:

"David Kuo, who served as deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, disputed the idea that the Bush White House was dominated by religious conservatives and catered to the needs of a religious right voting bloc.
"'The reality in the White House is — if you look at the most senior staff — you're seeing people who aren't personally religious and have no particular affection for people who are religious-right leaders,' Kuo said.
"'In the political affairs shop in particular, you saw a lot of people who just rolled their eyes at ... basically every religious-right leader that was out there, because they just found them annoying and insufferable. These guys were pains in the butt who had to be accommodated.'"

Do we really have less than 3 weeks to go?