Eating His Own

So, members of the House, who belong to a party whose leader is ostensibly the President, threaten to derail a business deal much beloved by the President, choosing as its only means of leverage to attach that bill to a bigger bill that sends money to the President's beloved war of choice. What do you do if your President Rove, er, President Cheney, er, President Bush?

If you're the Bush Administration you attack your own, accusing the Republican Congress of underfunding Katrina recovery.

I have this image: here's Bush, lamely playing carpenter, tool belt around his waist, and he hears that Congress has stapled the anti-Dubai port deal to his war funding, so he rushes to an open microphone and petulantly spits his outrage over his minions' disloyalty - Oh Yeah? Well you cheated hurricane victims! Nyah! - but while petulance is never absent from anything Bush, the attack was not impromptu or accidental. Bush has never considered the House or Senate any more than hosannahing choruses, and that congressman - freaking Representatives, for effing's sake - would defy His Eminence, well.

Dick Cheney emerged from his undisclosed location (and let me digress and mention that if his staff has indeed learned from past mistakes we would not know yes or no whether he's shot anyone in the face within the past two weeks, now would we?) to buzzsaw supplicant Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee to abdicate their power and responsibility. I don't imagine for a second a whore like Pat Roberts costs much to tipple, but what threats must Cheney have made to topple moderate darling Hagel? And now Bush directly blames the GOP-controlled House for the - well, one can't say signature mistake of his presidency, can you? How can you choose but one? - post-Katrina debacle.

A king can maintain fealty by fairness, bribery, or forced coercion. Knowing this administration, guess. And considering the coattails GOP Senators and Congressman were so slobberingly, fawningly, greedily ready to ride, it'd be a pleasure to watch them fry in their payback if only their blind rush to support this President on everyfreakingthing hadn't help land us in this cowpie in the first place.