As I post this President Bush is preparing to veto the troop spending bill in front of him. He’ll be making a statement afterwards about his comments on the situation.
As expected the media on the Right all have ruffled feathers over the entire situation. Congress is irresponsible. Congress is acting like traitors. Congress is crazy for not sending a clean bill to the President.
First, President Bush has been in office for 6+ years and this is the first time I’ve heard him make a big deal over the need for receiving a clean bill. Why were pork-laden bills fine while the Republicans were in charge of Congress but now they’re a problem with Democrats in charge? Hmm…
Second, this is all hypocrisy. During the 2004 election all we heard about, time and again, from these same people was how John Kerry voted against funding the troops. The bill in question was for $87 billion that President Bush requested for the troops. Kerry got skewered for saying, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” What he did was to vote for the funding in a clean bill and then voted against the bill the Bush administration put forward that was laden with special interests.
Why is this any different? It isn’t and that’s the point. The President has the bill in front of him to fund the troops. He doesn’t like what else in in the bill? Hey, go ahead and veto it but then he should send people out to say they were wrong on Kerry’s comments in 2004 and never raise this sort of objection again. Of course that’s just not going to happen and of course this is all just typical Washington politics.
