AP: Dubya Good, Bubba Bad

You have to read this news report by the AP’s Deb Riechmann a couple of times to find the misrepre- sentations and gratuitous slams at Bill Clinton and congressional Democrats, but they’re there.

Here’s one…

Outgoing presidents often unleash a flurry of executive orders and regulations in a last-minute attempt to leave their mark on U.S. policy. Frustrated by Congress' inability or unwillingness to pass the president's agenda, the administration already is taking steps to do it through executive action.

How about Congress being frustrated by Dubya’s inability or unwillingness to work with it on crafting a bipartisan agenda? If you want, Ms. Riechmann, you can read this post by Kagro X that contains the sorrowful details of the result of Dubya’s idiotic stubbornness (and this actually is noted by John Podesta, but it’s buried waaay down in Riechmann’s story).

Also…

With his immigration bill dead, the administration rolled out a proposed rule to address some of the major issues in the failed legislation. It will tighten border security, streamline guest-worker programs and pressure employers to fire illegal immigrant workers.

Bush said it was an example of acting within the boundaries of existing law when Congress failed to act.

Riechmann also buries in her story near the Podesta quote the fact that the immigration bill was sunk by congressional Republicans. If Bush is unhappy with Congress for failing to act on the immigration bill, he as the leader of the Republican Party has only himself to blame.

Besides, if Dubya is now going to enact something detrimental to illegal labor, he should first talk to people like California farmer Andy Casado (here).

This line from Riechmann is also worth a laugh…

Congress is on its August break, and the president is spending a working vacation at his Texas ranch.

Riechmann obviously didn’t get the memo; it’s supposed to be called a “recess,” not a vacation. And that assumes that members of Congress are all kicking back right about now, when in fact that’s not true (as noted in this post, Our Man Arlen Specter is touring PA to meet with constituents, which is commendable – his meeting in Mehoopany produced his “I don’t know if there’s any victory there” quote about Iraq).

And lastly, I give you this portion of Riechmann’s column…

About six or eight months before Clinton's presidency ended, his advisers began to think about all the mandates they wanted to get done before Bush's inauguration day, recalled Don Arbuckle, who retired last year after working more than 25 years at the Office of Management and Budget. In his final 20 days in office, Clinton issued 12 executive orders, including directives on migratory birds and the importation of diamonds from Sierra Leone.

Within hours after Bush was sworn in, Arbuckle said Bush advisers were asking him how to reverse Clinton's actions.

“Right up to the very end, they were trying to get things to the Federal Register and get them published and then immediately when President Bush took office, (former chief of staff) Andy Card issued a memo that said: 'Hang on. Withdraw everything you can until the new political official from the Bush administration has a chance to look at it.”

Kaplan said Bush could use his bully pulpit and veto threats along with executive orders and regulation to push his agenda, but that the president probably wouldn't follow Clinton's lead.

“I'm not sure you'll see this president or this administration trying to jam a number of midnight regulations through the door,” Kaplan said.

Spoken like a Repug (and how perversely funny is it anyway for our corporate media to ignore the fact that Bushco treats both Congress and the judiciary only as appendages of itself?).

As a member of the OMB, I don’t know if Arbuckle could have known that Clinton had been trying to work with the Republican congress for some time to pass the initiatives that he issued as he was leaving office. And even if he had, I don’t know how Arbuckle could begrudge Clinton the right to do what he saw fit (assuming Arbuckle had an axe to grind – hard to figure from Riechmann’s twisted reporting).

I would only ask that you take a minute to read the following portion of this CNN interview anchor Judy Woodruff conducted with White House correspondent Kelly Wallace from January 5, 2001…

WOODRUFF: Kelly, what do the people around the president say to critics who say this president is just trying to create a legacy here in the waning days of his presidency?

WALLACE: Well, they say a couple of things. First, they say it's not as if Mr. Clinton decided to tackle environmental, labor and worker-safety standards just over the past few weeks. They say these projects have been under way over the past few years. They also say very clearly that Mr. Clinton has always said he hoped Congress would address many of his priorities, but that he has also said he would work up until his final day, using his executive powers to accomplish everything he wanted to do –

So…it’s all right for Dubya to go it alone due to “Congress’ inability or unwillingness to pass the president’s agenda” or its “failure to act,” but when Clinton did the very same thing toward the end of his presidency, that was somehow bad?

Please…

Update: How can these life forms stand to live with themselves...