The Prudent President

The compassionate conservative who ran in 2000 lost his empathy on the way to the White House but, after years of spending for wars and tax cuts for the wealthy, is belatedly rediscovering his fiscal prudence--about health insurance for children, school aid and public housing.

Bush's latest act of compassionate conservatism is to deny funding for the Social Security Administration that would cut delay of financial aid to the disabled, many of whom now have to wait years to have their claims adjudicated.

As a New York Times editorial points out today, "the backlog of applicants who are awaiting a decision after appealing an initial rejection has soared to 755,000 from 311,000 in 2000. The average wait for an appeals hearing now exceeds 500 days, twice as long as applicants had to wait in 2000.

"Typically two-thirds of those who appeal eventually win their cases. But during the long wait, their conditions may worsen and their lives often fall apart. More and more people have lost their homes, declared bankruptcy or even died while awaiting an appeals hearing."

After Congress last month passed a bill to give Social Security $275 million more than he requested, enough to hire judges to speed up the process, the President vetoed as profligate an amount that wouldn't pay for a day of the war in Iraq.

What would America be like if we had elected an unfeeling liberal (as many disaffected Democrats believe we actually did) in 2000 rather than the compassionate conservative who is setting our priorities now?

September Song for Iraq

All year long, politicians of both parties have been tuning up for September. Now, as the lyrics say, the days are dwindling down to a precious few for Congressional Republicans who have to face the music next fall, but George Bush is still playing the waiting game in Iraq.

He now plans to ask for another $50 billion to keep funding the war in the belief that the mixed signals of progress that Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker are bringing to legislators will be enough to cow Congress into going along.

But the White House may be misreading the sheet music. John Warner’s little solo last week following Dick Lugar’s aria should reinforce earlier humming by Mitch McConnell and John Boehner that the chorus of yea-sayers is thinning out. Even the "sliming" of Congressional visitors to the war zone this month seems to be backfiring.

Add to all that unprecedented cacophony among the military, who are sounding notes of discord about what to do next.

Starting next week, there will be loud disharmony in the Washington air.