The magicians in the White House have been creating illusions for a really long time. And Americans love a good magic show, but it seems like the rabbit is finally out of the hat.

All along, this administration has been pompously dishonest about the direction in which the country is headed. Sadly, it actually worked for quite awhile. President Bush sustained a high level of popularity that wasn't based on what he has done in office, but on his ability to consistently present an image of confident and unified leadership. The key word there? Image.

Americans haven't seen that image of leadership in awhile. We've been too busy looking at news coverage of corpses floating in Katrina floodwaters, hearing the word "indictment" and "White House" in the same sentence, watching images of withdrawn Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers morph into Samuel A. Alito Jr., and mourning Iraq's death toll when it hit 2,000.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll published Friday said that Bush's approval numbers have dropped to new lows. Only 40 percent of Americans consider Bush to be "honest and trustworthy." In the past, those concepts have been Bush buzzwords. And the president's approval rating is even worse at a remarkably scant 39 percent.

This shouldn't just be chalked up to bad luck or be left to VH1 to determine that President Bush is having his worst week ever. It has been in the making for the length of the Bush presidency; this is just the first time that Democrats and Republicans alike can see what this administration is really about.

The Miers issue was a public portrayal of the Bush White House's cronyism addiction. The president nominated his own personal White House counsel to the highest court in the land and Republicans sent out the attack dogs.

With a second chance to make right on the issue, Bush waffled once again and introduced not a unifying force, but Alito -- a staunch conservative. This is the epitome of a Bushian response: When using an insider doesn't work, pander to your ideological base. Start at the innermost parts of your administration and work your way out. It's a method that ensures polarization of the country and can lead to compromising merit for ideology.

Many even said that the withdrawal of Miers' nomination was timed perfectly to coincide with the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr. This complicated CIA leak case seems to be about classified information and honesty in pre-war intelligence, and probably also cover-ups and lies. It echoes of Watergate, but also of classic Bush themes. This White House doesn't deal well with dissenters like Joe Wilson, and it doesn't ever admit wrongdoing. Even though the cards aren't laying out in their favor, Libby and White House adviser Karl Rove are still claiming their innocence. And despite the fact that the president says he holds the highest ethical standards for his administration, he refuses to fire Rove.

Loyalty to the point of failure is classic Bush, as is an inability to recognize past mistakes.

Outside of these Washingtonian issues, there are other examples of the current political unraveling. Bush has always labeled himself as a compassionate conservative, but much of what he has done in office hasn't been compassionate. One of the saddest examples of Bush's lack of compassion was his tragically slow response to Hurricane Katrina. The president was unable to successfully mobilize the necessary forces and grasp the seriousness of the situation.

On top of all that, there's still this little thing called the Iraq War. Last week, Democrats held a closed session of Congress to discuss prewar intelligence. According to the ABC News/Washington Post poll, 55 percent of Americans think the administration misled the country when it was making its case for the war and 60 percent say that the war isn't worth fighting. And especially because we just reached the 2,000 casualty mark, it would be hard to disagree with the 75 percent of Americans who say that the number of dead is "unacceptable."

From legality and ethics to questions of truth and integrity, the facade of competence is crumbling right around George W. Bush. Now the question is -- can any of this possibly work out well for the country?

Sadly, I don't think it can.