Yes, but the tide has turned. You can only maintain Orwellian doublespeak for so long in a democracy. I thought his speeech last night was particulary pathetic. Just to give a speech where he is assured someone will cheer the publicly discredited ruses he calls "foriegn policy", he has to appear before a War College. I wonder if his experience before his own conservative base at the ACU which you noted, had anything to do with his choice of venue. The entire enterprise is now an obviously intellectually bankrupt war of choice, and the public is realizing it got suckered and his conservative base now fears the public. They're not the only one who fears the public. At this point, Bush can't even give a campaign speech anymore without a handpicked audience in a staged environment, again as shown last night.