ambulance.jpg

From the NYTimes article today on the Bush efforts to "define their legacy" (their words, not mine):

The president’s own party remains angry with him for his handling of the war, the delayed ouster of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the low presidential approval ratings that contributed to this fall’s Republican wipeout.

Senior Republican staff members in Congress have voiced the fear that Mr. Bush will now put his legacy over the party’s immediate future, and take his cues from President Bill Clinton by “triangulating” when opportunity strikes — that is, making deals with Democrats, over Republican objections, on immigration, health care or Social Security.

“While the White House is trying to define their legacy, they’ll try to triangulate us,” said one senior Republican leadership aide who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “There is no sense of wanting to defend the Bush administration right now.”

Here's the thing about accountability: you don't get to pass the buck when you've been right there, all along, rubber stamping everything President Bush has wanted for years. It's your legacy, too, Republican rubber stamp Congress. How's that working for you?

The failures of George Bush?  Well, they accrue to the Republican-controlled Congress and to the Republican party as a whole, for propping up this idiocy for more than five years.  All those signing statements and thumbing of the Presidential nose at the Constitution and the separation of powers?  Blame the GOP.  And so on and so forth.

The Republicans in Congress just elected themselves…the same old same old when it comes to leadership, in both houses.  You think they have learned anything from the prior elections, other than "we'd like to cling to power with everything we have, pass out goodies to our cronies every chance we get, and screw the little guy?"  Me neither.

So here's a message to Republicans in Congress:  you want to blame someone for the failures of the Bush Administration, blame yourselves.  It's a mess of your own making, signed, sealed and delivered, with every rubber stamping that you so happily gave George Bush when your earmarks and cronies trough ranneth over.  The failures you want to blame on George Bush?  They are Republican failures — failures of leadership, failures of ethics, failures of having a spine outside the threats that Karl Rove issued as edicts from on high regarding campaign donations.  And big fat failures of policies that lead to nowhere other than filling the pockets of your cronies.

You want to assess some blame, GOP?  Try looking in the mirror.  Because you shut the Democrats out of the process from the day you took over both houses of Congress, and never looked back.  Whatever failures have accrued, they have accrued on your watch, on your doorstep, and on your terms.

Accountability knocks…and so does history.  And it isn't looking good for the GOP, is it?

More on the GOP attempt to recover from its "thumpin'" from the NYTimes and the WaPo.