Shouting match breaks out as Bush officials berate GOP Reps. who leaked meeting to press

[DeepModem Mom]

The Hill: Bush aides berate GOP members
By Jonathan E. Kaplan
May 11, 2007

Top Bush administration officials lashed out at a pair of House Republicans at the White House yesterday after details about a contentious meeting between President Bush and GOP legislators were leaked to the media earlier this week.

The confrontations are the latest indications of an intensifying rift between Bush and congressional Republicans.

Reps. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) attracted the ire of White House officials for allegedly speaking to reporters about a Tuesday meeting between Bush and centrist Republicans on the Iraq war. Details of the contentious meeting first emerged Wednesday evening and attracted Page 1 headlines yesterday.

Sources said that Dan Meyer, Bush’s liaison to the House, confronted LaHood while White House political strategist Karl Rove rebuked Kirk. It is unclear if LaHood or Kirk were the originial sources for the stories, but LaHood was quoted in one of the articles.

Regardless, LaHood and Meyer got into a shouting match as emotions ran high and voices were raised yesterday morning in the White House while lawmakers were waiting to meet with first lady Laura Bush, according to two legislators who witnessed the exchange. LaHood and five other GOP lawmakers met with Mrs. Bush in the Yellow Oval in the White House residence to chat about the No Child Left Behind law.

“The White House is not happy,” said a Republican lawmaker.

Two GOP lawmakers said that Rove admonished Kirk for talking to the media about the private meeting....

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/bush-aides-berate-gop-members-2007-05-10.html

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. completely opposite of what LaHood says today on cspan

jeez.

[donsu]

24. I had to go out when he was on - in a nutshell, what did he have to say

please and thank you

[BOSSHOG]

2. Does somebody need a timeout?

Should the gop seek counseling?

I recall a recent quote (don't know who said it) that's appropo. Anyone who doesn't want their counsel to the president made public shouldn't be counseling the president.

I think the NRA should get involved. Insist that all parties meeting at the white house be heavily armed. After all its their rights right? And the arms would only be used to ensure that everyone was safe.

[Dhalgren]

6. You are absolutely right!

"Anyone who doesn't want their counsel to the president made public shouldn't be counseling the president." I have said this before (I know you are not quoting me :) ) and I stand by that. If what is being advised to the President cannot be disclosed to the People, then he aught not hear that advice. This 'confidentiality" of Presidential counsel is total bullshit...

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

8. Timeout?

Shoot. Smack some Thorazine suppositories up their asses with a buttonset. That'll calm them down a bunch.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

33. Pray tell, what's a buttonset?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[Clark2008]

36. Good question.

[Virginia Dare]

9. I believe Ted Haggard is out of rehab...

perhaps he can straighten them out?

[tavalon]

21. John Dean

[tblue37]

26. John Dean said that, I believe. (eom)

[Manifestor_of_Light]

34. Hey, it worked for Aaron Burr ......

That's one way to get rid of your political opponents. With a derringer.

His victim is buried in the shadow of the former World Trade Center.

[BOSSHOG]

3. Will somebody be shouted at because they exposed the last shouting match?

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Good question! nt

[Lerkfish]

5. pardon me, but WHO THE FRICK is Rove to be able to berate a congressperson?

does congress work for Rove?

apparently.

[donco6]

10. Exactly.

Congress report to Rove now? Interesting. Wouldn't sit well with me if I were an elected Rep. being berated by a non-elected CoS.

[Warpy]

13. Oh, for the heady days when Delay was in charge!

Those hirelings would never have stood up to anyone! Rove never had to raise his voice because he knew Delay could cut off RNC funds to anyone who got uppity, plus get them off the lobbyist gravy train. Besides, everybody was on the same page, a thousand year Reich for the GOP!

What a difference an investigation followed by an election made!

[emulatorloo]

32. And who in their right mind would allow that nasty little amoral jerk to berate them?

If it happened to me, the little lying bastard would still be smarting.

[Virginia Dare]

7. My goodness, it's getting ugly isn't it?

one might surmise that the Repubbies are coming apart at the seams! :cry: :nopity: :popcorn:

[TwilightGardener]

11. Hmm, I don't know--sounds like more theater. Why does this keep

getting into the press? Who called Tim Russert?

[tanyev]

12. Oh, come on! Let's see some punches thrown!

In front of television cameras!


That would be must see TV. :)

[Tellurian]

18. Reality TV...The Implosion of War Criminals..GOP Unmasked!

read yesterday, an unnamed GOP critter from northern VA said his approval rating is 5% with his constituency.

Dems have to keep hammering the republicks. Someone needs to get in Boehmer's grill with a "nuance"!

[Dhalgren]

14. Now let's just parse this quotation from an upstanding Republican "lawmaker".

"Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) – a member of House Republican leadership — compared Bush’s political problems to then President Truman’s in 1952. President Eisenhower subsequently won the presidency and Republicans captured the House."

“We’re probably slightly behind where Truman was” with his Democratic Party in 1951 and 1952, McCotter said. “History has vindicated Truman…fortunately I don’t see a Democratic Eisenhower out there.”

"fortunately I don’t see a Democratic Eisenhower out there.”

What does he mean by this? It is either that Eisenhower was a terrible President and it is "fortunate" that there isn't another like him to ruin the country - or - Eisenhower was a very good President, but if it is a Democrat, this Republican "patriot" had rather have a lesser person in charge and to hell with the country.

Man these Republicans just cannot help but show their true colors. They actually hope that the country does worse under a Democratic President - I don't think any Democrat wants the country to do worse under a Republican President, they just (from experience) assume that it will do worse. And that is a big difference...

[Deb]

15. They detract themselves from bush by visiting his private quarters?

"The meeting with Laura Bush ended with a 20-minute tour of the White House residence, which is off-limits to almost everyone except the First Family."

Days later, Laura invites them into the living quarters of the WH. I don't believe a word of this contrived episode. The blood suckers may as well be attached to bush with an umbilical cord.

[Tellurian]

19. Word is Laura & JR are no longer living together..

A Teddy Bear on the bed and Condi's suits hanging in the closet?

[rocktivity]

16. This is part of the script

Do you honestly think that this meeting would have become public knowledge if wasn't supposed to? Do you honestly think that congresspeople can barge into Georgie's office any time they want, especially to give him what amounts to an intervention?

Georgie has to blink on the Iraq occupation funding, and to be appear to be willing to work with Congress, which will hopefully make the public happier. So in the spirit of compromise, he's offering to accept benchmarks rather than timetables. But the fact that the the Reps demanded results by September is the tipoff that this is just another media manipulation scam.

Why September? Why not June? Because a certain oil revenue-sharing bill will have been passed by the Iraqi government by then? (That would explain why Cheney took the trouble of informing them in person that he doesn't want them to take a two-month vacation!) And how much more work needs to be done on the fourteen permanent military bases and the embassy the size of the Vactican? Will they be completed by September as well?

Rove is just pretending to be angry that the meeting became public knowledge--and gosh darn it, THAT has become public knowledge, too!

:headbang:
rocknation

[Cameron27]

22. That's very plausible,

hmmm, the oil revenue-sharing bill. September, hmmm.

[Straight Shooter]

25. Scripted. Indeed, rocknation. I think you've summed it up quite accurately.

Smoke and mirrors.

[Beausoir]

28. I'm with ya. Doesn't pass the sniff test. n/t

[IndianaGreen]

35. We have been played for suckers for 6 years, and this charade is more of the same.

Thankfully, there are more sceptics now than ever before.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

17. This is wonderful theater. I hope I can get Kirk to sign my Playbill. nt

[The Backlash Cometh]

20. Republicans and their secrets.

How many of them abuse their children or are unfaithful to their wives? How many of them cheat the public on a daily basis?

You gotta wonder.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

23. They are idiots just for wasting their time to talk to Laura

Geez.

[tblue37]

27. I believe that the reps are wanting to signal their

constituents, because they are now more afraid of their constituents than they are of Rove and Bush.

[The Magistrate]

29. LaHood And Kirk Both, Ma'am

Are staring defeat next year in the face, and know it: their suburban districts are slipping daily away from them over the war....

"When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares into you."

[DeepModem Mom]

30. Yes, indeed. nt

[OneBlueSky]

31. remember what finally brought Nixon down . . .

it was leaders of his own party traipsing up to the White House to tell him it was time to go . . . and he did . . .

[Arugula Latte]

37. Fight! Fight! Fight!

Beat each other to a bloody pulp, please!

[opihimoimoi]

38. The GOP is starting to cannibalize their own.....Implosion, finger pointing, etc

Its all over but the shouting

[ThoughtCriminal]

39. As November 2008 nears

GOP Reps and Senators facing tough re-election will line up and beg Rove to publicly condemn them. It will become their best bet to save their jobs.

[Cobalt-60]

40. What a pity it's not believable

For years these people have goose stepped down the war crime path arm in arm with Cheney and Bush.
They've rubber stamped anything those two wanted. And they've endlessly lied, usually starting with a deceitful name for the enabling legislation, to accomplish it.
They've expertly manipulated their lapdog media to portray the picture they want us to see.
And that's what that's what they're doing now.
Televised "pillow fights" were a feature during the declining days of Reagan's popularity.
Republicons would pretend to differ with the White House in the hopes people had forgotten their goose stepping and rubber stamping for Reagan.
Every one of them that escaped retribution at the polls was waiting eagerly to get Stepping and Stamping for Bush 1.
Some of them are the very same political fossils.
No they all have to go.
But while it's true I have an assassin's heart where Republicons are concerned, I'm not an unreasonable man.
Talk is cheap. And actions don't lie.
Any 'con that wants to prove his worth need only help successfully override one of junior's vetoes.
To go even once against their Infernal Masters will prove their sincerity.
As for the rest of Steppers and Stampers - Guantanamo awaits.

[calimary]

41. Sounds like they're starting to notice the barbarians at the gate.

One thing I can pretty much guarantee you, even not knowing any of these folks personally. They'll appear in public as cool, calm, collected, and in total control - masters of the universe. Underneath, their knees are shaking, their bowels are quaking, and they're reaching for the chewable Maalox tablets every morning from the extra-large jar on their bedside tables.