Victory 2: Bush Won't Veto Bill to Support FM's

Bush has backed down from his threat to veto the bill to re-inforce the FM's as they struggle to survive the Recession brought about by lax regulatory enforcement in the financial markets for 8 years.

The House is expected to vote on the bill as early as Wednesday, and it could be sent to Mr. Bush’s desk by the end of the week.

Mr. Bush had voiced objections to a $3.9 billion provision that would give grants for local governments to purchase and refurbish foreclosed properties — a provision that the White House regards as a bailout.

But Mr. Bush set aside those objections on the advice of the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., who told him that the overall package was necessary to help stabilize the housing and credit markets, according to the White House press secretary, Dana Perino, who announced the switch Wednesday morning. Ms. Perino said the gravity of the crisis, coupled with Congress’ plans to recess later this summer, was the reason for the reversal.

“The president would not have signed this bill if we had a lot of extra time on our hands,” Ms. Perino said. “We don’t.” Mr. Bush believed he could have won a veto fight with the Congress, but that he had concluded a prolonged veto fight would not be good for the housing industry, she said.

Maybe. OTOH, maybe he knew he was going to lose again and didn't want to be embarrassed. Too bad the Democrats didn't think of opposing Bush before this. You know, the first few year when they were in the majority and appeasement didn't work.

To think that it was that easy. Imagine. Teddy interrupts his cancer treatment to make a dramatic appearance in order to beat back a Bush veto of the Medicare bill, and the next thing you know the Emperor is caving on his next veto threat. Who could have predicted that?

Actually, we all predicted that. The polls predicted it. The left-wing blogs predicted it. But the DLC-led Democrats ignored everybody and backed down to Bush over and over again, effectively re-writing the Constitution so it took 60 votes to pass a bill, mostly so they could - supposedly - use the resulting gridlock to blame Bush and the Pubs for the fact that nothing got done.

That was a risky strategy and it backfired on them. The polls have approval ratings for the Do-Nothing Democratic Congress that are lower than the president's cellar-numbers. The Democrats (I used to say "we" but no more) have shot themselves in the knee playing that shameless, opportunistic game. It hurts to think of the bills they could have passed if they'd stood up to him and the corpo's a year ago: SCHIP for the kids, no FISA abomination, no horrendous trade deals with Panama and Peru, etc etc etc. But no. They had to play political Russian Roulette instead.

If this were a regular election year with no war in Iraq and no Bush for the population to hate, the Democrats wouldn't be picking up seats, they'd be losing even more. They're going to win and the DLC is going to tell itself and anybody else who'll listen that it's because their strategy worked. It didn't. Their strategy bombed. No one is voting for the Dems, they're voting against the worst president in American history, a moron and proto-dictator who beat out such luminaries as Franklin Pierce, Rutherford B Hayes, and Ulysses Grant (arguably the most corrupt administration in our pre-Bush history) in vying for the coveted title. And don't think they don't know it.

We know we're voting against Bush and taking anybody not a Republican in every race, and we know why. We are not impressed by the Democrats' games and tricks. To us, it just makes them look like Republicans and we are in the process of wondering just how much difference it makes. Most of us will still end up making a protest vote, but don't let that fool you into thinking we're suddenly pro-Dem. We're not.

The DLC doesn't get it, though, and will end by having even more power, so much that they'll be all but impossible to crack after BO wins in November. We can look forward to continued and consistent rightward movement by the Democrats for the next decade.

Let me know when you've had enough and together we'll throw a big-ass monkey wrench into the Republicrats' autocratic plans. See you next year.