Today's Rose Garden Ramble

Today the President made some comments in the Rose Garden castigating Congress for daring to attempt to curtail his war by attaching a time limit for withdrawal to military appropriations. As has been his habit, the President hid behind "the Troops" and accused his opponents of undermining the safety of our boys (and girls) by trying to put a time limit on this folly. There is something richly ironic about accusing the Congress of not respecting the troops because they pass legislation that would get them out of harms way. In fact it is so ironic that I have to believe this argument will fly like a lead balloon.

Also lost in the shuffle is the fact that the President left himself open for just such a maneuver. In an effort to create some rosy budget numbers, the Administration did not include appropriations for Iraq in its 2007 budget and decided instead to rely on emergency appropriations such as this one. That strategy opened the door to allowing another branch of government to play in the Iraq sandbox. It seems the President was unwilling to take the political heat that a war budget would engender.

I am not sure this will play well for the White House. I sense the people have had enough of the retarded boy emperor* and are looking for an adult to manage the situation and tell him it is time to come home. (Of course whether this Congress is that adult remains to be seen.)

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Interestingly, in the same address, the President attempted to paint his former campaign adviser and chief pollster, Matthew Dowd, as overly emotional about the war because he has a son serving. (Over the weekend, Dowd told the Texas Monthly that the President was living "in a bubble," and that "Sen. Kerry was right about Iraq.") Seems that there is always some psychological ailment or personal grudge that affects anyone who dare criticizes the President.

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Last note on the Rose Garden press conference. (Which will be the last for a bit because the President is heading down to Crawford for five days of vay-cay.) Reading the transcript, I see the President also was at pains to criticize the Mideast tour undertaken by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, during which a Congressional delegation will meet with Syrian officials in the hope of enlisting their support in the Middle East. (This was one recommendation of the Iraq Study Group.) The President is upset because the meetings "send mixed messages to Syria" a country we are trying to isolate from "the mainstream." the President went so far as to chastise Pelosi for seeking a "photo op." I notice the President did not mention that at least three Republicans went with Speaker Pelosi, so apparently not everyone in the GOP agrees with his stance.

He also failed to mention that our attempts to "isolate" Syria apparently don't extend to our renditions to that country. The US has regularly sent detainees to Syria to be tortured under our program of extraordinary rendition. So I guess we are all about isolating Syria until such time as we need some guy waterboarded.

Refusing to deal with Syria is probably not good policy given their obvious self interest in the region. Worse, it seems to be bad policy topped with a generous helping of hypocrisy.

*Retarded boy emperor is not mine. It belongs to Bill Maher.