Bush's Gas Pain

"[T]he president had something else up his sleeve. He used his appearance before the White House press corps to perform one of the oldest tricks in the book: blaming Congress. He faulted lawmakers 16 times in his opening statement alone."

Sheryl Gay Stolberg and David M. Herszenhorn write in the New York Times: "Democrats pushed back, accusing Mr. Bush of trotting out old ideas and of favoring big oil companies at the expense of average Americans. . . .

"Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said: 'He says he's concerned with high gas prices and high food prices and student and home loan problems. But the truth is that the president has closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears as these crises have grown.'"

Matthew Hay Brown blogs for Tribune: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will give President Bush this much: He's one of a kind.

"'Only President Bush could allow Big Oil to write our nation's energy policy, guarantee billions in oil tax breaks and refuse to stand up to OPEC or crack down on price gouging, and then shirk responsibility for gas prices that have more than doubled and oil prices that have quadrupled since he took office,' the Nevada Democrat said today. 'Only President Bush could be surprised to learn that gas was approaching $4 a gallon and then claim the White House is concerned about high gas prices.'"

Michael M. Phillips, Greg Hitt and Sarah Lueck note in the Wall Street Journal: "Mr. Bush's broadside, launched Tuesday at a Rose Garden news conference, came as a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll showed that 73% of U.S. citizens disapprove of his management of the country's economic policy, up from 66% last month and the worst rating of his presidency."

Inertia Watch

Carl Hulse writes in the New York Times: "Americans are pumping their paychecks into their gas tanks, and the economy is in a stall. Food scarcities threaten governments overseas and spur hoarding at home. Foreclosures are up, home sales are down. Progress in Iraq and Afghanistan is halting.

"Despite this confluence of crises on the nation's doorstep, official Washington is beset by election-year inertia. After a fleeting bipartisan moment in January produced the rebate checks that began going out this week, the House and Senate floors have been given over to partisan sniping and small-bore bills."

So whose fault is it? Hulse writes that "there is plenty of blame to go around. Democrats, and some Republicans, are trying to wait out the Bush administration, hoping to find a more receptive audience in whomever the next president is. Both parties are pushing political initiatives, trying to avoid tough votes themselves while inflicting them on the other side. Republicans are happy to slow legislation out of ideological opposition and an urge to flummox Democrats, forcing votes on even the most routine matters in the Senate."

Indeed, the stalemate will continue unless either Bush or the Democrats make a genuine effort to compromise. But revisiting ANWR is certainly not an attempt at compromise.

As Hulse writes: "Bush set Congressional eyes rolling on Tuesday when he pushed again for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an initiative that could not clear Congress when Republicans were in charge and would offer little in the way of immediate help.

"Democratic leaders see Mr. Bush as unyielding, unreasonable and unwilling to compromise on any front. They viewed the president's ultimatum on Tuesday on a war spending bill as typical. He pledged he would not budge from a $108 billion ceiling he had set for a bill that Democrats hoped to use as a way to provide some domestic economic relief and new benefits for members of the military."