By Stephen Collinson, Agence France Presse, September 28, 2005

29 Sep 2005 // Another day, another blow to President George W. Bush's ambitions for a soaring second term of radical reform.

Republican bruiser Tom DeLay's indictment Wednesday swelled the pack of problems homing in on the White House, including a hurricane backlash, Iraq war angst, the pain of rising gasoline prices and tumbling opinion polls.

DeLay, majority leader in the House of Representatives, glorifies under the nickname "The Hammer" and was crucial to keeping Republican lawmakers lined up behind Bush policy aims like Social Security and deficit trimming.

His decision to step aside temporarily to fight conspiracy charges linked to a campaign finance probe deprived Bush of his arm twister in chief on Capitol Hill.

And analysts said, DeLay's travails thicken a whiff of scandal settling around Bush's Republican Party, after Senate Majority leader Bill Frist admitted federal investigators probed him over possible insider trading.

White House policy maestro Karl Rove, often dubbed "Bush's brain" is also at the center of a probe by an independent prosecutor over the outing of a CIA spy in the heat of the row over the disputed justification for the Iraq war.

Frist and DeLay have denied all wrongdoing and the White House has vigorously defended Rove.

But any public backlash could spell bad news for Republicans in midterm elections next year and hamper Bush's bid to dodge the dreaded lame duck label which bedevils all second term presidents.

"For his program to pass, he needs a strong Republican leadership team, and this clearly hurts," said Larry Sabato, of the University of Virginia.

"The major part of his program was already in a lot of trouble, this makes it worse."

Ellen Miller, deputy director of Campaign For America's Future, a progressive policy research institute, agreed the DeLay affair was bad news for Republicans.

"The indictment will cement the public perception that Congress is corrupt. I think it could have some impact for the elections next year."

Thursday was another day dictated by events for a White House machine which once ruthlessly steamrolled all before it.

"Congressman DeLay is a good ally, a leader who we have worked closely with to get things done for the American people," Bush's spokesman Scott McClellan, in a strikingly lukewarm defence.

DeLay's indictment trampled all over Bush's latest attempt to convince Americans that Iraq is going well, despite his lowest ever public approval ratings and rising US casualties.

Even here, there was a hint of weakness, as Bush publicly asked members of Congress to turn up to briefings with top generals.

"The support of Congress for our troops and our mission is important, and Americans need to know about the gains we've made in recent weeks and months."

The White House had hoped to wrest attention back to Bush's agenda after a month of full bore damage repair, and six trips to the ravaged Gulf coast, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Bush was accused by opponents of blundering in the desperate days after Katrina, which helped to hammer his poll ratings.

His promise to spend whatever it takes to rebuild Louisiana, and other hurricane-hit states, has already dismayed fiscal conservative supporters.

With a swelling deficit expected to tally more than 400 billion dollars next year, Bush vowing not to rescind massive tax cuts, some allies are already wondering how he will pay for anything else.

Bush's vow to overhaul Social Security retirement savings is seemingly dead in the water, with little obvious enthusiasm to touch the "third rail of US politics" in Congress.

Republican Party woes ought to boost Democrats, only a year after their drubbing in congressional polls and the defeat of presidential challenger John Kerry.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on Wednesday gleefully declared the end of the "Republican Revolution" which dates from former speaker Newt Gingrich's ride to power in the House after 1994 elections.

But Democrats, three years out from the next presidential election -- and still trying to figure out why they lost last year, seem rudderless, unable to capitalise on Bush's woes, and even irrelevant.

"The Republicans are in power. You would be foolish to try to buy a Democrat off, they cannot deliver anything for you," said Melanie Sloan, director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington when asked why only Republicans seemed touched by scandal.