Here's a suggestion to Reid and Pelosi: Forget about the $100 billion spending bill for a moment. Take $1.25 out of petty cash and let Bush play with these while the grownups work on cleaning up his mess
Here's an astonishing statistic that perfectly captures Junior's progress over the last 48 months:
Tuesday's developments came exactly four years after Bush's speech on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln decorated with a huge "Mission Accomplished" banner. At the time, Bush's approval rating was 63 percent, with the public's disapproval at 34 percent.
Four years later, only 35 percent of the public approves of the job the president is doing, while 62 percent disapprove, according to an April 2-4 poll from AP-Ipsos.
From 63/34 approval/disapproval to 35/62 approval/disapproval. Now that's some serious flip-flopping.
Actually, truth be told, those numbers don't show Bush moving at all. He hasn't. It's the American people who've moved and left Bush behind.
Here's the spot that Americans United for Change began running at a little after 6pm Eastern time tonight:
Some people think that the tag line--"You can veto a bill. But you can't veto the truth"--is a knockdown punch. I'm not so impressed myself; the line is more impressive the less you actually think about it. If you try to analyze it very closely, on the other hand, it starts to make about as much sense as "You can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish." Your mileage may vary, but that's where it left me.
On the other hand, I definitely like the line "It's the will of one nation versus the stubbornness of one man." It's too long for a bumper sticker but it captures what's going on here. Bush is clearly going to hold his breath till he turns blue, or fall screaming on the floor and take a big frothing bite out of the carpet, rather than admit he was wrong. America, by and large, is coming to understand this, but that behavior can be hard enough to handle when it's coming from a sulking child. When it's coming from a President--who's acting like a sulking child--it's orders of magnitude worse.
1 comment:
I see I'm not the only one reacting to the childishness of our CIC.
While the pundits talk of the inevitably watering down of the next funding bill after Bush's veto is sustained, I think it is a critical time for EVERYONE in Congress to be hearing from their constituents.
Here's the letter I sent my congresscritters:
The Democratic Congress' response to President Bush's veto of the compromise funding bill (H.R. 1591) represents a critical moment in our history. Please do not cave to the conventional wisdom, but stay tough in standing up to this Administration in representing the public's dismay with his stubborn refusal to admit that his policy has failed.
Specifically please:
1) Toughen the conditions related to any war funding.
2) Take the unrelated measures out of the bill. (Pass them separately instead.)
Bush has already refused your compromise: take something away.
When a petulant child misbehaves, no one advises the parents to compromise with him. That would reward the bad behavior and encourage more mischief. Bush may not be a child, but he certainly acts like one. Frankly I'm happy for this veto. The embedded timelines in the bill gave Bush far too much latitude to simply ignore them. The American people are fed up. If the Democrats can get a tougher bill to pass, it will be the President who is then up against the wall. As time is running out his veto would become the thing that denies support for the troops.
It has always been this president and his administration who is most guilty of not supporting our troops. I know I do not need to explain this to you, but from the protection on the ground, to the stop loss orders, to the treatment of our returning veterans, the American people aren't buying the myth that giving Bush what he wants is protecting the troops.
As your colleagues hear from their constituents, you should have the votes to pass a tougher, cleaner bill. Toughening it can help bring along the liberals who might have previously only been convinced to support it for it's unrelated provisions. Cleaning it might help bring in some Republicans with strongly anti-war constituents who could use the "pork" excuse to vote against it.
Walker
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