"The president has become belatedly pragmatic?" What is he smoking?

it must be some pretty powerful shit to be able to claim that george w. bush has "come around..."

A New Reality in Washington, but Can It Last?

[...]

What is clear is that both Mr. Bush and his rivals are shying from the path of confrontation. Democrats, for the most part, are refraining from muscle-flexing, showers of subpoenas and other displays of new clout. And a White House hungry for legislative victories is working hard to negotiate a vastly changed political landscape.

“The president has become belatedly pragmatic,” said Ross Baker, an expert in presidential-Congressional relations at Rutgers University. “I think it took a while for him to recognize that the ground rules have changed, but he seems finally to have come around to the realization that he’s not working with a docile Congress of his own party, but with people who really have decided that they are going to challenge him.”

i can see it's time once again to trot out the warning label that bushco prominently affixed to its post-2006 election plans last october...

In fact, when it comes to deploying its Executive power, which is dear to Bush's understanding of the presidency, the President's team has been planning for what one strategist describes as "a cataclysmic fight to the death" over the balance between Congress and the White House if confronted with congressional subpoenas it deems inappropriate. The strategist says the Bush team is "going to assert that power, and they're going to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court on every issue, every time, no compromise, no discussion, no negotiation."

what exactly has george bush done, mr. baker and ms. stolberg (sheryl gay stolberg, the author of the excerpted nyt article), to lead you to think george bush is behaving according to a "new reality...?" please, it's a serious question... he kissed off the dems' attempt to compromise on the war funding bill, he's retaining a proven liar as attorney general, he refused to answer a legitimate and very important question about his role in the "wednesday night ambush," he's stonewalling subpoenas, he's withholding documents and emails, he's continuing to pursue a detainee interrogation policy based on torture techniques, he's sanctioning military kangaroo courts and attempting to block detainees from access to legal counsel... great god almighty...! don't feed me the absolute, unadulterated crap that the president has suddenly seen the light and decided to become pragmatic just because there's been highly questionable "bipartisan" agreements reached on immigration and trade... if you can't recognize bullshit when it's being poured over your heads, that's YOUR problem, but don't try to get me to go along for the ride...

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