The Bush Administration’s downward spiral continues. A new Washington Post/CBS News poll shows Bush’s popularity at another new low; 58 percent question his integrity.

The question at hand is: What’s he gonna do about it?

Many’s the cable news bobblehead who says that he can come back from such a popularity low. Reagan did it, they say. Other presidents have done it. It can be done.

Yes, it can be done. But not by George W. Bush.

Last May I wrote that Bush is a one-trick pony. Bush and his circle of enablers found a way to bamboozle the public into accepting a spoiled, lazy frat boy as their glorious leader. Their trick worked really well, for a long time. But now that the public is catching on, they don’t have another trick.

Five months ago Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei wrote at WaPo that Bush had spent his political capital. From May 31, 2005:

Through more than four years in the White House, the signature of Bush’s leadership has been that he does not panic in the face of bad poll numbers. Yet many Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the lobbyist corridor of K Street worry about a season of drift and complain that the White House has not listened to their concerns. In recent meetings, House Republicans have discussed putting more pressure on the White House to move beyond Social Security and talk up different issues, such as health care and tax reform, according to Republican officials who asked not to be named to avoid angering Bush’s team.

“There is a growing sense of frustration with the president and the White House, quite frankly,” said an influential Republican member of Congress. “The term I hear most often is ‘tin ear,’ ” especially when it comes to pushing Social Security so aggressively at a time when the public is worried more about jobs and gasoline prices. “We could not have a worse message at a worse time.”

Baker and VandeHei quoted conservative “pundits” who were as clueless as the White House. For example, Newt Gingrich advised that Bush focus harder on “personal” Social Security accounts, and Bill Kristol thought that pushing through John Bolton’s nomination for UN ambassador would be just the thing to rally the public. Can we say, “out of touch”?

The Bushies continued to party until Katrina broke in and flipped on the lights. Now we’re two months past Katrina, and the Bushies still show no signs of being able to update their act.

At Salon, Sidney Blumenthal writes that the Bush’s famous “bubble,” which protected him from all unpleasantness, has turned into a bunker:

His nomination of his White House legal counsel Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court was an acknowledgment of his sharply narrowed political space. Bush believed he could thread the needle with her because her record was unknown. While the Republican masses supported him, the Leninist right staged a revolt. In Bush’s cronyism and opportunism, they saw his deviation. He was the disloyalist. With the prosecutor’s indictment imminent, Bush withdrew Miers and caved. Broadly unpopular, he could not suffer a split right. His new nominee, federal Judge Samuel Alito, a reliable sectarian, is a tribute to his bunker strategy.

Hostage to his failed fortune, Bush is a prisoner of the right. His administration has become its own little republic of fear. Libby’s public trial will reveal the administration’s political methods. Cheney, along with a host of others, will be called to testify. Whatever other calamities may befall Bush, their specter harries him to the right. “Disunity, dissolution and vacillation” are hallmarks of “the path of conciliation,” as Lenin wrote in “What Is to Be Done.” The vanguard on “the path of struggle,” criticized for being “an exclusive group,” must oppose any retreat proposed by the “opportunist rearguard.” “We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance almost constantly under their fire.”

Bush’s last refuge is a place light years to the right of the American mainstream. From there, he has no where to go but down.

Also: Today’s Paul Krugman, online. You will enjoy this. Pass it on.