From the NYTimes this morning:

...The entire effort was swiftly coordinated by the Republican National Committee and the White House, using the same political machinery that carried them to victory in 2004. It began in the days before the anticipated loss of Mr. Lieberman, a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq, to Ned Lamont, a vocal war critic whose victory Republicans used to paint Democrats as “Defeatocrats.”

That word originated in a White House memorandum by Mr. Bush’s press secretary, Tony Snow, suggesting ways to frame the debate, that was shared with officials, including Ken Mehlman, the Republican chairman, and Karl Rove, the president’s top strategist....

And a top Republican strategist cautioned that the party’s candidates still faced serious challenges in states where the war and Mr. Bush were overwhelmingly unpopular.

But at the very least, news of the plot helped the White House and the Republican Party achieve something they have struggled to do all year: bring the party forcefully together with the president.

The plan came together at the same time that Mr. Bush and his top security aides, as well as Vice President Dick Cheney, were being intensively briefed on the unfolding British investigation. That led Democrats to charge that the White House had actively used the plot to its political advantage.

“For people to suggest there was somehow a larger, coordinated effort between the Lieberman loss and the disruption of the terror plot is just absurd,” said Brian Jones, a spokesman for the Republican Party.

Administration officials said that those who had been briefed on the plot had not expected any arrests for several days, well after the initial political fallout of the Lieberman campaign would have played out.

But in several interviews, the officials said the attacks had reinforced arguments they had devised to meet Mr. Lieberman’s expected defeat.

Officials said they had identified a Lieberman loss as a potential watershed moment that could reinforce the Democrats’ antiwar message — and scare Republicans out of taking White House advice to embrace the war in Iraq and national security in general. That advice was wearing thin as the death toll in Iraq continued to climb....

No matter how much spin you put on it, the bottom line is that the White House now has to use scare tactics on Republicans to get them to back the President's agenda. It's called failure, and no one is buying the spin any longer, not even Mehlman, who sputtered his way through Meet the Press this morning. Pitiful.  Geotge Bush's BFF Joe Lieberman showed the President for what he truly is:  a wanna-be emperor with very tiny coattails these days, and the big fear for the White House is that Republicans nationwide would notice and adjust accordingly.

And they are.

Republicans are running away from George Bush and his failed policies to save their own electoral hides. And George Bush and his cronies are so weak, so laughably weak, that the only thing they have in their arsenal to force their own political allies to heel is to screech 9/11 at the top of their lungs and hope for the best. 

And that is not nearly enough because the American public finds the carefully-crafted spin words without actual deeds to back them up hollow and false.  Hot air and bullshit are not enough to win an election this year -- but it's all George Bush and the do-nothing Rubber Stamp Republican Congress has.  And the bill for this continued failure and all the lies is about to come due.

Accountability is so hot, isn't it?  Had enough?

UPDATE:  The Muck says that the US rushed Britain on arrests in the terrorism bust from last week, that came on the heels of the Lieberman loss.   Hmmm...anyone think that the CT referendum against Joe Lieberman and his support of the "Stay the Failing Course" Bush Presidency had anything to do with the push on this?  Oh, heavens now.  This WH and the current GOP leadership would never politicize national security policy.