Should Bush Sign The "Ethics" Bill?

While reporting on the "dilemma" that President Bush faces in what to do with the laughably described "anti-pork" bill Congress passed last month, Robert Novak in fact makes the case for why Dubya should veto it back to the Stone Age:

The final version of the widely celebrated ethics bill, approved by overwhelming margins in both the House and Senate a month ago, finally and quietly made its way last week from Capitol Hill to the White House. It surely will soon be signed into law by President Bush. What only a handful of leaders and insiders realize is that this measure, avowedly dedicated to transparency, actually makes it easier for the Senate to pass pet projects without the public - or many senators - being aware of it.

Until now, one or two senators could block provisions not passed by the Senate or House from being inserted, usually at the end of a session, into the final version of a bill. Under the new rule, it will take forty senators to block any such provisions that are protected by the majority or even the bipartisan leadership. That will make it much easier to enact any number of special-interest measures, the goal of all too many members of Congress.

Novak clearly thinks Bush will meekly go ahead and sign this corrupt, Donk-entrenching legislation. So does the Admiral, citing the Administration's improving fortunes on Iraq as a powerful reason Bush may opt against picking another partisan brawl.

They're probably right. Dubya doesn't do partisan brawls - the "New Tone," and all that rot - and depending upon whether "overwhelming majorities" in Novak-speak means "veto-proof," the White House will probably approve the bill for the same reason it okayed the bloated '05 transportation bill - it was going to become law regardless, so why go out of the way to make the President look even more politically impotent than he already is?

The one difference between then and now, however, is that the other party is now in control of Congress. Consequently, "a communications blitz to get the failures of this bill highlighted" would not embarrass Republicans, but the Democrats who are trying to pull a brazen "fast one" on the public that ostensibly elected them to "clean up" Washington of its "culture of corruption". The political effect of such a PR offensive would be salutary: either the Dems, their bluff having been called, would be compelled to quietly withdraw or revamp the bill to make it worthy of the label "reform," or they would be lured into lurching to its defense when the facts weigh heavily against them.

Such an effort would be of more than just partisan GOP benefit. This "ethics" bill has been designed to entrench the REAL party of corruption and protect its bread & circuses from any public scrutiny whatsoever. It is the precise opposite of the ostensible purpose for which the voters installed the Democrats last November.

Seems to me that's something that the President owes it to the American people to let them know about, while the latter still have the power to do something about it.