George W. Bush

Via New York Times 

On the long list of things Roy Blunt would rather not talk about in 2010, his leadership in passing George Bush's Medicare Part D legislation is probably near the top of the list.  The tactics employed to just get the bill out of the House are disgusting enough, and then there's the fact that Blunt and his fellow GOP leaders didn't even bother trying to pay for the huge expansion in federal spending. 

Unexpectedly, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) spoke this weekend about the fiscal leadership (or lack thereof) from Bush, Tom Delay, Blunt and the rest of the gang.

Roy Blunt, Ron Richard, Patty Richard and George W. Bush in 1999, as found on the new RonRichard.com.

Six years ago yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a controversial and still-unfunded Medicare prescription-drug bill with an historic and extremely controversial early morning vote. At least three of Missouri's Representatives -- Roy Blunt, Jo Ann Emerson and Todd Akin -- played key roles in the drama.

Bruce Bartlett, a former policy advisor to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, recalled the vote last week in a column about Republicans' deficit hypocrisy:

[W]hen the legislation came up for its final vote on Nov. 22, 2003, it was failing by 216 to 218 when the standard 15-minute time allowed for voting came to an end.

What followed was one of the most extraordinary events in congressional history. The vote was kept open for almost three hours while the House Republican leadership brought massive pressure to bear on the handful of principled Republicans who had the nerve to put country ahead of party. The leadership even froze the C-SPAN cameras so that no one outside the House chamber could see what was going on.

The Hill's Bob Cusack wrote an amazing article about the 'night the clocks and scoreboard stood still" two years after the vote. He recounts:

Lawmakers say it was the most intense environment on the [House] floor in decades...

He wouldn't have it any other way.

Sarah Palin's upcoming trip to the College of the Ozarks received a small mention on The Rachel Maddow Show last night. It was followed by a segment on George W. Bush's new motivational speaking tour, which was far more amusing.

Late last week, members of the US House Intelligence Committee were "warring" over what to do with new information from CIA Director Leon Panetta that the CIA has been concealing a secret information-collecting program from Congress for years. Here's what Panetta is reported to have said:

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday...

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

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Roy Blunt (R-K Street/Georgetown) is uncomfortable with the fact that the mortgage crisis went down when his boy George W. Bush was president, and when Dubya's boys were running the SEC, Treasury Department, etc.:

Blunt said some credit should be given to former President George W. Bush for warning about the problems of the mortgage regulators for most of his presidency. Blunt said the problem occurred because Bush's warnings were ignored.

"This idea that we inherited all these problems (from the Bush administration), and somehow it's because the government didn't do enough, doesn't really look at enough of the facts," Blunt said.

Warning about the problems of the mortgage regulators? I missed those warnings (as did the Bush Administration), and will be curious to learn how Bush was too impotent as President of the United States of America to tackle any problems with mortgage regulation. 

I would also appreciate a breakdown of why Blunt thinks the Obama Administration has "replaced the politics of hope with despair," while simultaneously (in Blunt's words) acting "like it's going to solve all the problems." 

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