“Change” is one of the favorite buzzwords of both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates this campaign. It helps that neither an incumbent president nor a sitting vice president is seeking the White House for the first time in decades.
But former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said the current occupant of the White House, President Bush, needs to take the initiative by inspiring Congress to join him in making policy changes “right now.” Gingrich said Bush has the perfect venue — the State of the Union speech he will be delivering within days.
It’s a timely, and not at all coincidental, sales pitch for Gingrich’s new book, “Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works,” which went on sale today.
Democrats this week ended their first year in control of Congress in more than a decade with an admittedly mixed record. Rob Bluey of the conservative Heritage Foundation thinks this video best illustrates that record.
Full disclosure: I’m on the advisory board of Heritage’s Center for Media and Public Policy, which Bluey heads.
President Bush on Thursday compared Congress’ Democratic leaders to people who ignored the rise of the Soviet Union’s Vladimir Lenin and Germany’s Adolf Hitler early in the last century. AP reports that Bush said “the world paid a terrible price” then and risks similar consequences for inaction today.
“Unfortunately, on too many issues, some in Congress are behaving as if America is not at war,” Bush said during a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Bush’s remarks were his second this week alleging inaction on Capitol Hill. You can listen to bothspeeches below.
Or if you prefer to watch, here is video of the Heritage speech:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi served the National Republican Congressional Committee a video feast on an online silver platter today when she responded to Congress’ low approval ratings by saying that she is among those who would give low marks to the legislative body she helps lead.
Pelosi, D-Calif., made the comment in the context of Democrats in Congress not being able to stop President Bush from implementing his policies on the Iraq war, and she ultimately blamed Congress’ ineffectiveness on Bush. But that’s not the headline embraced by the NRCC, which is the campaign arm of House Republicans, or by the media.
Ironically, Pelosi’s admission that she disapproves of Congress’ record came on a day when she and other House leaders celebrated the first year of the 110th Congress
The first time in 20 years that Congress has not sent the president even one annual appropriations bill by this time of the year. The Senate’s longest delay in 20 years to confirm an attorney general. The prospect of unfunded troops in the field without funding. Twenty million more Americans subject to the alternative minimum tax. An outdated intelligence surveillance law.
If you’re a Republican in the Senate and add it all up, as some of them did at a press conference today, it equals Democratic mismanagement of Congress. “It’s time to start doing things that are important to the country,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
The do-nothing-Democrats theme has been embraced by Republicans from President Bush on down in recent weeks. In the past, the GOP has accused the Democratic leadership of fostering chaos and breakingpromises.
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