The president's strange, cynical line-item veto proposal

Is he trying to lose the House and Senate?

On Monday, President Bush said he will send Congress proposed legislation to give the president the authority to cut individual provisions out of spending bills passed by Congress. According to the proposal, the spending bills would then be sent back to Congress for a straight up-or-down vote.

Apparently the dog ate the White House copy of the Constitution. Oh, that Barney.

The president said his administration's proposal will meet the standards set out by the Supreme Court in 1998, when the justices rejected the last line-item veto law as unconstitutional.

The president doesn't like to brag about it, but White House counsel Harriet Miers studied constitutional law at Mussolini Tech.

President Bush's proposal is strange even if, following his example, you set aside the Constitution.

It makes the Republican-majority House and Senate look like irresponsible teenagers racing through a mall with a stolen credit card.

The premise of the line-item veto proposal is this: Congress is enslaved to special interests and only the president has the good of the whole nation at heart. Therefore the president should act like a responsible parent and veto all the irresponsible spending provisions, sending the spending bill back to Congress with this choice: accept the president's changes or shut down the government.

Currently the Constitution requires the president to accept Congress' spending proposals or shut down the government.

That's such an icky choice. Any president would like to pawn it off on someone else.

Still, Mr. Bush is not running for re-election. Shouldn't he be willing to take one for the team? Why is he asking the House and Senate to vote on a line-item veto proposal which only serves to advertise to voters that Republicans are wasting their hard-earned tax dollars?

What is he thinking?

Let's all hold hands around the table and close our eyes, and maybe we will be able to read his mind.

It's foggy, it's cloudy, it's clearing, wait... there it is, concentrate, it's starting to appear, it's coming into focus:

President Bush believes the government can only function effectively if he is the only one in it with any power.

This is a man who owes Saddam Hussein an apology.


Copyright 2006

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