Jewish World Review March 13, 2006 / 13 Adar, 5766

Bush pays for his contempt of Congress

By Joe Scarborough

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Payback is hell.

That's what White House staff have to be thinking, as Republican lawmakers kicked their President in the political teeth for the first time in five years.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle will tell you that George W. Bush and his top staff members have never hidden their contempt for lawmakers on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue.

That's because the Bush White House has never considered Congress an equal partner in any program or initiative they launched.

I got a glimpse of this disdain when I was still in Congress. In fact, many of my Republican colleagues laughed that they got more respect from the Democratic President they had impeached a few years earlier.

Looking back on it, we did.

The President paid for his can't-be-bothered approach toward Congress when House and Senate members decided to stand up to Bush's veto threat. In doing so, lowly senators and congressmen embarrassed the President of the United States in full view of the world.

Still, Republicans on Capitol Hill are fretting that their President's port controversy will be another election year disaster for a party beaten and bruised by missteps and scandals. But they also wonder if the Bush Administration will finally accept them as equal partners in this bloody political year.

The answers to those questions are yes and no.

That is bad news for a political party on the brink of disaster.