President uses a blow torch to light fire under Congress

President Bush took the opportunity to wear out Congress yesterday morning. There was no sign that there should be any compromise. It should be his way. If you aren't doing it his way, he will veto it. He named a number of things that Congress isn't doing - Alternative minimum tax (which the Republican's had 6 years to do something on but didn't), His War Funding request and other spending bills.

I find it odd that this man was labeled as the compassionate conservative. I hadn't seen one bit of compassion for the American people. I haven't seen the president compromise on any major piece of legislation. He has pushed, prodded, punched and run over anyone in his way.

From WaPo:

With his approval ratings stubbornly low, President Bush is trying to gain political traction by spoiling for fights with an institution the public appears to hold in even lower esteem: Congress.

Bush held his 18th event of the year yesterday focused on his disputes with Capitol Hill, blasting Democratic lawmakers for not completing annual spending bills, or sending him war funding legislation, or finalizing a measure that would permanently legalize his administration's warrantless wiretapping program. The 19th event is to come this morning in a presidential news conference at the White House.

Thankfully, Harry Reid, Democratic Senate Majority Leader, countered. "The surge hasn't accomplished its goals," Reid said. "... We're involved, still, in an intractable civil war." In a wishy-washy piece in Politico.com, the author paints the Democrats has waffling on the Surge. Stating that some Democrats are saying that the Surge is in fact working. Any Democrats who have said that the Surge is working are either being quoted out of context (John Murtha) or have their heads in the sand. Right wing bloggers like Hot Air have missed the point. The point of the Surge was to decrease violence so that there could be political reconciliation. This is what President Bush said back in January. As I mentioned before, our military if given the right resources can control any space in the world. This is clear. No Democrat or Republican would argue this point. Our military has been proving that they can clear and hold territory ever since the war began. The problem was that our military would then have to leave that area and move to somewhere else that was out of control. When they left a power vacuum was filled with para-military Sunni's and Shiite's. Again, I would point out that the goal that President Bush set, not Congressional Democrats or Belt Way pundits. The President set the goal. The goal was to decrease the violence so that there can be a political power sharing agreement.

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