On Wednesday, The New York Times officially caught up with DR in an article headlined "Seems Like the Last Word on Medicare Wasn't". As the article points out: "When President Bush signed into law the biggest expansion of Medicare in 38 years last December, the moment was widely considered one of unalloyed triumph for the Republicans."

But it ain't so unalloyed any more. Even John Rother, policy director of the AARP, which supported the Medicare bill, has to admit:

When we measure public opinion, what really stands out right now is that essentially the Democratic charge has taken hold, and people do see the bill as very favorable to the pharmaceutical companies and to insurers. I think they're much less clear about whether the bill helps them personally or not.

He's got that right! According to the new CBS News/New York Times poll, by more than 4:1 (34 percent to 8 percent), Americans believe that the policies of the Bush administration have increased, rather than decreased, the cost of prescription drugs for the elderly (another 27 percent say there's been no effect). And among seniors, the intended benefiaries of the legislation, it's even more lop-sided--by more than 5:1 (43 percent to 8 percent), they say Bush's policies have increased, not decreased, their drug costs.

Not exactly what the GOP had in mind. At this point, they're reduced to asserting that the truth about the bill eventually come out or (even more laughable) the availability of drug discount cards this summer will really turn things around.

AARP's Rother allows that could happen "but it's hard to predict". Actually, I don't think it's hard to predict: it won't.

Of course, the administration's problems on this front are being seriously exacerbated by the emerging scandal about suppression of cost estimates for the bill. Richard Foster, the analyst whose estimates were suppressed, now says he believes the White House directly organized and encouraged the effort to keep his estimates out of the legislative process.

They'll deny it, of course. But every little bit hurts. And it illustrates a problem with the conventional wisdom about "Bush's good week". This judgement is apparently based on: (1) Kerry's less-than-stellar performance beating back various rhetorical salvos from the Bush campaign in the past week; and (2) the horse race result in the CBS News poll cited above, which shows Bush with a small lead over Kerry.

But the other side of this is that, outside of these rhetorical exchages, nothing good has happened in the real world that puts Bush in any stronger position than he was. Quite the contrary. Instead we have: the terror bombing in Spain, that shows terrorism is alive and well; the bloody attacks in Iraq; Iraq coalition partners bailing out left and right; the Medicare scandal; and CBS News and other polls showing no change in voters' gloomy perceptions about the direction of the country, the state of the economy and the situation in Iraq.

So don't let the CW fool you. Bush is still in a lot of hot water. Time for the Kerry campaign to come right back at 'em.