But the sausage was even uglier than the sausage-making. For conservatives, with the exception of a large increase in defense spending, the bill is a hot mess. It raises discretionary spending 13 percent, advances almost no
It was reportedly this fact that prompted Trump to tweet a veto threat on Friday morning, sending
Then, in a shambolic press conference cum signing ceremony later that day, he grudgingly said he'd sign what he called "crazy" legislation. But, he added, he would "never" sign another bill like this again. The key message of the day: It's not my fault!
So whose fault was it? Those backstabbing blackguards of the Beltway.
"Total betrayal by the
Pirro went on: "Folks, I want to be real clear. This is not on
It's interesting when people who insist that Trump is the greatest negotiator in history and the most farsighted three-dimensional chess player since Commander Spock also insist that he got rolled.
But that is the new party line, apparently, and it must be toed. "The president was really sold a bill of goods here," Trump confidante
There's just one problem: It's a lie. Or, to be more charitable, it's untrue, even if those saying it believe it (in some cases, no doubt, because that's what Trump tells them).
A source who was involved in drafting the bill tells me that the
Why the lie? Undoubtedly for some people, it's too hard to process the idea that the president deserves blame or is out of his depth. Many of the same people decrying all the wasteful spending in the bill haven't noted that Trump's stated reason for threatening a veto was that it didn't spend more on a wall or include a fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
But cognitive dissonance is only part of the story. This stabbed-in-the-back narrative -- Dolchstoss in German -- is not merely a cynical excuse for letting Trump off the hook. It also lays essential groundwork for Trump to escape blame if the
It's worth recalling the political climate the week before the omnibus was released. Democratic Rep.
The Dolchstoss myth solves that problem.
Conservative discontent over the omnibus spending bill will surely make things harder for the
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Jonah Goldberg is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and editor-at-large of National Review Online.