On Bush, World War III, and Peanuts

[bigtree]

I'M watching the lame-duck loser in the White House popping off at the press about Congress having "work to do" spending our money while threatening to kill the one reasonable thing they managed to accomplish so far, the S-CHIP bill. Bush cocked his eyebrow at the camera and puffed at Congress to "put politics aside" and accept his way or the highway as proponents were still working to clean off the slime Bush's conservative cadre smeared on the sick children used in appeals highlighting the urgent need for affordable health care around the nation.

Claiming that he was "interested in avoiding World War III," he moved us closer to that possibility with wild swipes at the Iranian regime for a nuclear weapons program he's yet to produce evidence of. Visibly bored and increasingly boxed in by his manufactured quagmires abroad, Bush came down to his refurbished White House press room to take swipes at his congressional detractors from the elevation he imagined his "bully pulpit" gave him.

"I'm doing it right now, see -- not to interrupt you -- but it's called the bully pulpit. And I hope to get your -- I was trying to get your attention focused on the fact that major pieces of legislation aren't moving, and those that are, are at a snail's pace. And I hope I did that. I hope I was able to accomplish that," Bush huffed when a reporter suggested he had accepted that whatever Congress ultimately does with our money is beyond his control.

Bush ticked off his legislative wish list that his chief of staff Josh Bolten (former OMB Director) wrote to make him look 'relevant' and to get him out of the funk he'd slipped into when someone gave him word that approval of his presidency had taken a nose-dive to a new low of 24%.

"There are half a million children who are eligible" for the children's health care program," Bush said, arguing that "adults" who were receiving health care benefits were, somehow, obstacles to finding money for the sick kids. He bragged on "$35 billion a year" he claimed was already being provided for "poor children."

Then -- doing his part in his conservative cadre's assault on the foundation of our expectations of government's responsiveness to the health care needs of the vast majority of Americans who will perish without assistance -- Bush took a revealing swipe which undermined all of his blather about fiscal responsibility.

"To increase eligibility up to $83,000," Bush said, "is an attempt by some in Congress to expand the reach of the federal government in medicine."

That's Bushonian code for, 'those damn liberals want to lure us into enacting socialized medicine.' Those damn liberals want EVERYONE to eventually have access to health-care. A few decades of that and we'd all be, downright . . . healthy.

It would be an offense to Bush's conservative cadre to use some of Americans' hard-earned contributions to government to help save some of their neighbors' lives. Spending $35 billion on poor kids' health care is a national disgrace. Health resources for Americans have been reduced to a miserly afterthought as Congress shovels an endless glut of money into the raging furnaces fueling Bush's manufactured quagmires abroad.

Earlier this month Bush had complained about Congress spending $25 billion more than he had requested in his domestic budget. Not an eye blinked at the White House, though, as the administration shamelessly asked Congress for $100 billion more for their Iraq folly.

Bush's handlers should have kept him occupied in the White House with his video games and left him to wallow in the state of unpopularity he's brought on himself with his anti-democratic obsession with militarily dominating the Mideast. Prattling on about looking for "common ground" with Congress, while squashing every initiative from them which contradicts his own pernicious ambitions, the lame-duck loser is exercising the last gasps of his dissembling, self-serving reign. He's doing his best impression of Lucy from Peanuts holding the national football as it appears our Charlie Brown Congress is winding up for another kick before he yanks it away . . . again.



http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree

[nightrider767]

1. I think Bush was nervous at first,

But now see's the Congress as rather lame and is having his way with them.

He punches them,,, no punch back

He punches them,,, no punch back.

Can this be any simpler? No money for kids, then no money for your war.

What am I missing!?! :banghead:

[bigtree]

2. You are absolutely right

A good deal of the appropriations could be used as leverage for what we want out of the republicans. It's not rocket science.

[bigtree]

3. bump

[ninkasi]

4. Great post

K&R