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Libby indictment adds to White House woes
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-29 19:41

In the face of such grim news, Bush is likely to follow the examples of Clinton and other embattled presidents and make a public display of his work ethic.

"The American people expect me to do my job, and I'm going to," Bush said, shrugging off the "background noise" of the CIA leak investigation.

White House officials have said they expect anybody indicted to leave the staff.

On Iraq, the president has given a series of speeches defending his war policies. The approval of a new Iraqi constitution Oct. 15 is one of the few pieces of good news Bush had gotten this month.

The economy has been a baffling issue to Bush and his team. They have not figured out how to convince the public that the economy is doing as well as experts say. It's a hard sell when pension funds are going bankrupt, health care costs and gasoline prices are soaring and jobs are being shipped overseas.

That leaves the rift with conservatives. The White House hopes that Miers fixed that problem by withdrawing.

Bush blamed her demise on a dispute with the Senate over access to White House documents, but that wasn't half the problem. It was a family fight, an ugly one, between a conservative president and like-minded activists who consider themselves entitled to dictate his Supreme Court pick.

They helped him get elected twice. They wanted a tried-and-true conservative on the bench, and Miers didn't cut it.

With independent and Democratic voters abandoning him in droves, Bush couldn't afford to make conservatives angry.

"The base is his last refuge at this point," said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political science professor.

"He's facing some daunting challenges," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass. "The way that political leaders move when they are facing challenges is back to their base."
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