Ask Not What You Can Do For Your Country. Ask What You Can Do For Your President

Ah, Democracy...deliberation, consensus, compromise. The two hundred plus year old experiment in people governing themselves. The birthplace of historic orators like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy. People who inspire, who can, through their eloquence cause us to reach beyond ourselves and stretch to greatness, as a people and a country. Where else but in America is the future illuminated by the fire of ideas burning brightly in the public square? Where else does a person's ability to convince 51% of the value of an idea contain the power to move us all? And further, is it not so that the continual struggle of competing visions provides fuel for the engine that drives progress?

Wouldn't you agree, Mr. president, that the true cause of America's greatness lies in these simple facts? Bush will invite Democrats to the White House to discuss their standoff over a war-funding bill, but he will not budge from his opposition to troop-withdrawal deadlines in Iraq.
Oh. OK, then. Well, never mind.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino announced that the Defense Department will soon send Congress a bill to transfer $1.6 billion from the Veteran's Administration to cover funding for troops — a move needed, she said, because lawmakers have "acted like they don't need to do what the president says. Congress needs to quit interfering with the president's wishes," Perino said. "We'd have won this war by now if it wasn't for Congress."

Perino said Bush would invite congressional leaders to the White House to "discuss how they should agree with him," Perino said. "I will point out this is not a negotiation. Negotiations are something democracies do...I mean something you do with those on an equal footing, no wait, something unions do. Yeah, that's it. Negotiations are for unions, and we all know how unions have wrecked this country."

When a reporter said it sounded like an invitation for Democrats to agree with Bush, Perino said, "Well, hopefully so, but it doesn't really matter because under the president's constitutional powers, he really doesn't need the Congress.That's just a rumor started by the liberal media."

"Maybe they need to hear again from the president about why he thinks it is foolish to set arbitrary timetables for withdrawal," Perino said. "I mean take the 'surge' for example. When we first announced that everyone said it was a timetable because a 'surge' doesn't last forever. But, we fooled you because there is no end to it. See, just when the Americans...er...I mean insurgents think we're getting ready to leave, we shout 'Surprise, we're staying.' Got to be disheartening. A brilliant piece of military strategy on the president's part, no?"