{"id":6808,"date":"2006-03-09T09:50:38","date_gmt":"2006-03-09T14:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6808"},"modified":"2006-03-09T09:50:38","modified_gmt":"2006-03-09T14:50:38","slug":"bush-triangulates-in-new-orleans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bush-triangulates-in-new-orleans\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush triangulates in New Orleans"},"content":{"rendered":"

George W. Bush has never been above triangulation<\/a>, but yesterday’s comments in New Orleans seemed like a particularly tough shot<\/a> across the Republican Congress’ bow.<\/p>\n

President Bush, on a Gulf Coast inspection tour that included his first visit to this city’s storm-shattered Lower Ninth Ward, bluntly accused Congress on Wednesday of underfunding the repairs and called for speedy action to make good on federal commitments.<\/p>\n

The president said Congress has been slow to provide funding to rebuild housing destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and, while pledging to make New Orleans’s levees “equal or better than they were before” the storm, attacked a congressional decision last year to redirect $1.5 billion from his request to repair the region’s flood-protection system to projects in other storm-affected states. […]<\/p>\n

“Congress heard our message about improving the levees, but they shortchanged the process by about $1.5 billion,” Bush said, calling for the money to be restored.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, the president needs an excuse to justify the delays in helping rebuild New Orleans, and Bush has decided on a simple strategy: It’s the Republican Congress’ fault.<\/p>\n

Now, I realize the relationship between Bush and his GOP allies on the Hill has been a little rocky lately. Just yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee voted 62 to 2 to kill the Dubai Ports World deal, in the process ignoring the White House’s demands. It no doubt made the Bush gang unhappy.<\/p>\n

I also can appreciate the strategy behind triangulation — the president may believe he can get a boost in support by confronting both<\/i> parties in Congress, holding himself out as a better, more pragmatic, alternative.<\/p>\n

But as strategies go, this one doesn’t make a lot of sense, at least from a GOP perspective. In eight months, those Republican lawmakers the president blamed for “shortchanging” New Orleans will be on the ballot. Bush won’t.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, if this helps fan the flames, and further deteriorates the relationship between the Republican White House and the Republican Congress, so be it. Dems can just watch — it’ll be a treat for them to be out of the line of fire for a change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George W. Bush has never been above triangulation, but yesterday’s comments in New Orleans seemed like a particularly tough shot across the Republican Congress’ bow. President Bush, on a Gulf Coast inspection tour that included his first visit to this city’s storm-shattered Lower Ninth Ward, bluntly accused Congress on Wednesday of underfunding the repairs and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}