President George W. Bush warned Democrats Friday not to "test my will" by passing new legislation on a US troop pullout from Iraq after he vetoes a bill passed by Congress this week. Bush invited Democrats and leaders of his Republican Party to discuss a way out of their standoff soon after he strikes down the bill, which ties 124 billion dollars in war funds to a withdrawal that would start on October 1.
"And if the Congress wants to test my will as to whether or not I’ll accept the timetable for withdrawal, I won’t accept one," he told a news conference at his retreat in Camp David, Maryland, alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. "So if they want to try again that which I have said was unacceptable, then of course I’ll veto it," Bush said.
But even at that, this phrase makes abundantly clear that he hasn’t given a moment’s thought to what Congress says, or what the people say, or the dismal state of affairs in Iraq itself. He hasn’t even spent a moment alone with his own conscience. It’s simply about his will. He’s even stopped coming up with a rationale for his will. We’re so used to this kind of little boy, pissing contest talk that we don’t even react anymore when he says such things. We’ve stopped expecting him to act like a leader, or even a grown-up. Are his constituents really going to put up with this kind of prepubertal thinking for another 632 more days? It’s hard to imagine…
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