the party of personal responsibility refuses to accept responsibility
I know it’s not a surprise, but Bush is trying to dodge the GOP’s culpability for the “rocky start” of their Medicare drug plan. Here’s a passage from David Sanger’s New York Times article :
In an echo of speeches conceding errors in the responses to Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq reconstruction, and in which he insisted that the problems were being resolved, Mr. Bush told a group of pharmacists and Medicare participants here that he had expected that the program would have a rocky start."Any time Washington passes a new law, sometimes the transition period can be interesting," the president said. [emphasis added]
Memo to Dubya: “Washington” didn’t write the bill, pass the bill, or sign it into law. The GOP wrote it, the GOP voted for it, and YOU signed it into law. Whatever is wrong with it is YOUR FAULT, because YOUR PARTY controlled the process and YOUR PARTY determined the outcome. Its failure isn’t another “Washington” failure, it is another GOP failure.
Demanding personal responsibility from others and accepting responsibility for one’s own actions are two very different concepts, especially in (GOP) Washington. If the GOP wants to continue controlling Washington, they must atone for their failures.
(Thanks to John at AmericaBlog for the tip.)