Bush’s Shell Game Continues

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


bush_talking.jpgTuesday, President Bush almost seemed to be his old swaggering self in a Rose Garden press conference. But it’s easy to go on the offensive when the defense has called time-out: Congress is on spring recess. Bush attacked the Democratic leadership for leaving without finishing the Iraq war funding bill before they left. The president said if Congress doesn’t step to, he may be “forced to consider cutting back on equipment, equipment repair and quality-of-life initiatives for our Guard and Reserve forces,” to ensure funding for “troops on the front lines.”

This assessment was absolute balderdash. A stop-gap funding measure has already provided $70 billion for the Iraq war. Congressional Democrats have reminded that Bush’s refusal to be more honest about the costs of the war in his own budget has forced them to approve a series of piecemeal spending packages. And last spring, the Republican-led Congress also left for spring recess without finalizing an Iraq spending package—in fact, they didn’t do so until the middle of June.

In the same press conference, Bush charged that the $70-billion supplemental spending bill is loaded with Democratic “pork.” The president’s War on Pork (WOP) began just as the Democrats took power. Nifty, huh? Yesterday, the White House unveiled an online database of all the earmarks in the 2005 fiscal year budget. Well, all the congressional earmarks, which total $19 billion. The White House neglected to include its own pet pigs, which bring the total to $48 billion.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate