Bush turns guns on House, Senate

Opening up a new front in Bush's War Against Everything (TM), the president has trained his guns
on his congressional allies.

No surprise there, since there isn't an ally Bush doesn't like to demonize, and it's now clear that House Republicans are not exempted:

President Bush's campaign to enact his domestic agenda and win reelection next year is creating political problems for congressional Republicans.

Bush, accused by Democrats of shortchanging homeland security, is blaming the GOP-controlled Congress for underfunding programs to guard against terrorism. Mr. Bush told the National Governors Association this week that Congress "did not respond to the $3.5 billion we asked for -- they not only reduced the budget that we asked for, they earmarked a lot of the money" for other unrelated programs. "Tactically, that was a stupid thing for the [White House] to do," a senior House GOP aide said yesterday.

Why was that stupid? Because increasingly aggressive Democrats are going to get LOTS of political milage from Bush's remarks.

Democrats said the president's remarks likely will be fodder for political ads in 2004 accusing House and Senate Republicans of failing to protect the homeland. The president "is saying, in effect, Republicans shortchanged homeland security," said Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.). After reading the president's remarks, Hoyer said he told his staff, "let's develop this" for a campaign.

In addition, the White House is putting pressure on Sens. Voinovich and Specter -- possibly undercutting them as they face reelection in 2004.

Posted February 28, 2003 08:19 AM | Comments (52)