Now They Tell Us

From here...

Learning from Bush's Mistakes? In contrast, President Bush was notoriously ham-handed in his dealings with Capitol Hill, particularly in the early years of his administration. The desire of congressional Republicans to appear supportive of a president of their party often obscured the roiling tensions under the surface as Bush squandered a deep reservoir of good will.

He developed policies that were antithetical to many conservatives, most notably the 2001 education law known as No Child Left Behind and the 2003 Medicare prescription drug law, often ignored Congress until he needed votes at the last minute, and was ultimately viewed as a lame duck by many in his own party as soon as he was re-elected.

"Now there is no re-election prism, " Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said when Bush won a second term. "People are not going to have to feel that they have to vote for things that they think are unnecessary."

It was clear from the first major domestic policy initiative of his second term -- an overhaul of Social Security -- that Bush had little political capital left in the Capitol.

"From the Speaker on down, they pretty much ignored him," said John Feehery, a Republican consultant who was a top aide to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. "They weren't going to walk the plank on it."

Bush's influence in Congress dwindled even further with the failed appointment of White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers, a Bush loyalist, to the Supreme Court in late 2005, and was evident in the restoration of then-Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott to the Republican leadership team in 2006 after the administration had pushed him out four years earlier.

Bush picked top-notch staff to represent him on Capitol Hill but demonstrated little interest in what congressional leaders thought and had even less personal engagement with lawmakers, according to a House Republican leadership aide.

"I'm not sure Bush had the proper respect for Congress," the aide said, observing that the job of well-regarded congressional liaisons like Nicholas Calio and David Hobbs ended up being "to cover for the president, who didn't want to have to deal with anybody from Congress."

The White House staff can only do so much, the aide said.

"It all has to do with the principal," he said. "The lesson is the president has to engage."

Fat lot of good all of these revelations do now, with His Fraudulency only taking up space for 64 more days.