This week George W. Bush criticized the Democratic-led Congress for moving into the last three weeks of legislative session without passing a single government-spending plan.
At long last, Nancy Pelosi made bold to laugh at Bush on CNN, saying:
You know, God bless him, bless his heart, president of the United States, a total failure, losing all credibility with the American people on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject…Challenging Congress when we are trying to sweep up after his mess over and over and over again.
Great comeback, Nancy! But why were you saving all this up until just now? Because the coast is clear? Because he’s out of office in six months?
In 2006, didn’t you tell us that impeachment was “off the table”? Did the Republican-led Congress offer Bill Clinton the same courtesy for infinitely less heinous crimes in 1998? Didn’t you put the kibosh on Dennis Kucinich’s articles of impeachment against Bush? (Note: in typical new-guard Democrat fashion, Kucinich voted down his own bill!)
Bush may be a blight on our nation, but was he wrong to call out a patently ineffectual Congress? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid joined Pelosi’s jamboree against Bush with the words: “Who would be afraid of him? He’s got a 29% approval rating.” Yes, but let’s also recall that Congress now has an 18% approval rating – a low grade that it has dutifully earned.
I know that “a house divided cannot stand.” I know that conservatives love to see liberal eat liberal, and I don’t want to play into that trap. However, I can’t think of a worse period in history for Democrats to perform so poorly. Why are they constantly snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory? Remember John Kerry’s 2004 campaign? (Of course I voted for him, but I was more voting against Bush.) I hate like hell that Rush Limbaugh was right about how Republicans uphold their own positions and Democrats don’t. Like I said in an earlier blog, after the last battery of capitulations in Congress, I officially left the Democratic party and declared myself an Independent.
Now, Barack Obama is a great beacon of hope. I am voting for him even more than I’m voting against McCain. But this Congress better get its act together and defend its own ideals and values, rather than, in effect, saying, “Oh, we do uphold these ideals and values. And we will vote to enforce them. When it’s more convenient.”
Tags: Dennis Kucinich, George W. Bush, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Rush Limbaugh
