Tuesday, June 12, 2007

A Lame Duck Congress

Liberals have gleefully pointed to President Bush's 28 percent approval rating (even though Harry Reid's approval rating is 19%). They've talked hopefully of a lame duck presidency and ramming distasteful legislation down the President's throat.

But I said way back in November that a Democrat Congress wouldn't do much. Sure, they can hold endless hearings and hope to embarrass the President, but without impeachment, those joys are short-lived.

Now we have the Senate with egg on its collective face because they can't rally enough Senators to conduct a no confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

As Captain Ed points out, no confidence votes are exceedingly silly in a country without a parliamentary system of government. Silly and meaningless. And this no confidence vote wasn't even crafted in a manner that it would appeal to enough Republicans, disgusted with Gonzales' performance, to vote for it. But their votes on Iraq--which, try as Grandma Pelosi might, can't force us out of Iraq--coupled with the debacle that was their U.S. Attorneygate "scandal," which turned up only incompetence and mishandling on the part of Monica Goodling, but no criminality on the part of Karl Rove or Dick Cheney, point to the lame duckedness of Congress, not the President.

As Jules Crittenden says,

It’s hard to blame those who repeatedly herald Bush’s lameduckness. Technically, he’s been in lame-duck territory for some time. There was the November election, the Rumsfeld departure, the Libby conviction, the Amnesty bill’s failure. But the notoriously inept chimp keeps defying them. He refused to cede his presidency as they demanded. His surge is moving forward without restrictions, the withdrawal measures and drop-dead progress dates jettisoned. They wanted a change in strategy in Iraq, he gave them one and there are signs it is working, whether they like it or not.

This Amnesty bill, as bad an idea as it was, was a deeply bipartisan bad idea that shows he is willing to reach across the aisle to Ted Kennedy of all people, one of his nastiest war critics, to pursue goals he supports, against the odds. He is operating boldly on his own terms. He has also been practical in the past, and we’ll see what comes out of his meetings with Republicans today.

Indeed, someone needs to inform this exceedingly "dumb" President, the one the Left has such contempt for but seems to escape their noose time after time, that he is a lame duck and he needs to start acting emasculated.