Vacation, all they ever wanted

January 16, 2006

According to Bob Novak, whose Republican sources are pretty solid, there’s a good reason the House GOP won’t choose new leaders until Feb. 2 — they’re not at all anxious to get back to work.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert turned down a White House request to elect a permanent successor to Tom DeLay as majority leader in advance of President Bush’s State of the Union address on Jan. 31. Republican House members simply did not want to return early to Washington after their winter vacation.

Bush’s aides wanted an early vote, perhaps on Monday, Jan. 30, so that speculation over DeLay’s successor and a possibly bitter internal campaign would not distract from the president’s speech. But Hastert set the voting for Feb. 2 after GOP members objected to changing plans for getting back to work.

Two random reactions. First, Bush’s influence on the Hill must really be on the wane. If this were January 2004 instead of January 2006, it seems very likely the House GOP caucus would return when Bush asked them to. Now, not so much.

Second, the White House is right to worry that the House leadership election may step on the post-SOTU message, but it’s not as if Bush is really in a position to complain. After all, no one hates returning to Washington to get back to work more than the president.

Even though this Congress is the biggest rubberstamp for a president in recent memory? Wow, the bottom is starting to get a little loose.

  • I must be missing something somewhere — I thought the Patriot Act extension was only until Jan 31? Did they approve a longer extension and I just missed it?

  • I thought the Patriot Act extension was only until Jan 31?

    I believe it was extended by Sensenbrenner to Feb 5th so that there would be no time to discuss it when they got back and would once again playing chicken.

  • Damn straight.

    How the hell did things ever get so fucked up – can someone tell me that much.

    How is it that some good-for-nothing frat boy who failed upwards his entire life due to his family name and fortune was given the reins of government?

    I have to pinch myself every day. Did we not only elect – but RE-elect this failure of a man? Really, did we DO that?

    The mind reels.

  • Chuck – “Did we not only elect – but RE-elect this failure of a man? Really, did we DO that?”

    No, we did not elect him. We did re-elect, however. So I suppose it is all our fault ;-(

  • Chuck – “Did we not only elect – but RE-elect this failure of a man? Really, did we DO that?”

    No, we did not elect him. We did re-elect, however. So I suppose it is all our fault ;-(

    Lance – that second “election” is more in question than ever – Bradblog has always been on it as well as over on freepress.org –that nice Greek boy, ‘kalo paythe’ Bob Fitrakis (sp?) has been nailing ‘malaka’ Bush on it since the ’04 election. If that’s all Greek to you, you’ll get a hint of the meaning of ‘malaka’ if you check out what George Clooney said at the awards last night when we wondered why Abramoff’s parents would name their kid ‘Jack’ when they have ‘off’ in their last name.
    RicK

  • Lance, it’s extremely likely that Bush was neither elected NOR re-elected. Exit polling in 2004 clearly showed a pattern of over-reported Bush votes in almost every “swing” state. Combined with the manipulation of polling places and registration lists, phone jamming, and lack of an adequate number of machines in urban precincts, it’s likely that we will not see another unrigged national election in our lifetime. It’ll take 60% of the vote to offset the widespread cheating on behalf of Jeb in 2008.

  • I watched Al Gore on C-Span monday, MLK day, and I thought this was the best speech given in years, however the CNN yokels are trying their damdest to make him look like a radical left winger , heres a guy that won more votes than Bush and should be President back in 2000. We have to knock down Scott Mc Clellen, and his Blitzer creep with a lot of mail. Can you imagine Bush giving a speech like Gore did, I did not see him look at his notes briefly and I wish he would get back into politics. ole vet

  • How can any elected official take a long vacation while the folks they let go and stay to fight and die in a country that posed no threat to the US are still there? Something tells me some shame should be in order but perhaps that’s foreign to these folks. Can you imagine a nerve-shattered mom whose son is in Iraq right running into a Congressperson who’s “on vacation?” Wonder what that encounter would be like?

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