Hanging Him Out To Dry

As noted here, Dubya sure did this to former Office of Management and Budget director Rob Portman (pictured).

We all know about how Dubya likes to pretend he’s something he’s not, like the “Top Gun” airline pilot during the infamous “Mission: Accomplished” moment on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, the world statesman during the equally unfortunate “laying of hands” on Angela Merkel of Germany, and the leader sensitive to African Americans who makes jokes about them taking out the trash here.

And in keeping with this posturing, he wanted Portman to show steely resolve to Congress in dealing with spending requested in a Military Commissions and Veterans Affairs bill, particularly the portion dealing with VA medical care.

Please understand that I am not sympathetic to Bushco in any way here. But if Dubya is going to send Portman to the hill to do his dirty work, the least he can do is stand by the guy.

However, as noted in the story…

“…congressional Republicans refused to hold the line on veterans and in the end the president decided not to back Portman’s repeated veto threats on the Military Construction-Veterans appropriation measure. Instead, Bush instructed Portman to draft a Statement of Administration Policy for the bill that reiterated concerns about overall spending but failed to include even the boiler plate phrase 'senior advisors would recommend that the president veto the bill' in its current form.”

…

Portman, a former congressman, had spent enough years in the House to know that opposing the bill would be difficult. But he also knew the numbers well enough to know that any offensive against excess spending would have serious credibility problems if, as an opening shot, it turned a blind eye to 40 percent of the problem (re: the 40 percent discretionary spending increase proposed by Congress).

So what about the person named to replace Portman (Jim Nussle, by name)?

During the six years he served as Chairman of the House Budget Committee he failed twice to reach agreement with the Senate on a joint resolution. A third agreement he forced on the Senate was so controversial that it barely cleared the House and was never called up for a vote in the Senate.

…

Nussle’s latest train wreck began a year ago when he failed to find any way to reach compromise with his Senate counterpart, Republican Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. As a result, the House and Senate proceeded through the appropriations process with two quite different sets of spending restraints—a fact that directly led to a near-total breakdown in the budget process, leaving the job of funding most of the federal government to the new Congress when it convened this past January.

This is just another reason why I’m afraid it could be a looooong next 19 months (1/20/09, barring impeachment, can’t come soon enough).