Bush Takes Shot at Dems During Rose Garden Statement

President Bush made a Rose Garden statement expressing his sympathy with the victims of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis and pledging the support of the federal government to help them recover, but also used that opportunity in the national spotlight to take a shot at the Dems for failing to pass any of the 12 required spending bills. As the president stated, the "Democrats won the election fair and square and now control the calendar for legislation". You could almost imply from his statement that if the spending bills don't get passed on time, the blame for delays in dealing with the bridge situation will be placed firmly on the heads of the Dem leaders.

He'll get some criticism from outraged Dems for sure as they'll be screaming that he used this nationally televised statement to take a partisan shot, but I'm glad he did. The Congress is not getting the job done and with a month long vacation starting at the end of this week, they're setting up a crisis in September that doesn't need to happen.

Whether or not this was the time to take a shot at the Dems can be argued by others, but I think Bush got out the message he needed to get out.

UPDATE: Right before going on the air with KHND in North Dakota, I was watching the press conference from Minneapolis featuring the state and local political leaders, and I think I picked up the new poll-tested Democratic response to this tragedy. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) gave a statement and repeated this phrase twice: "A bridge in America just shouldn't fall down". When I heard it the first time my political ears perked up a bit, and when it was repeated later in the statement I figured they've found their talking point and I expect it to be used frequently on the floor of Congress as they use this incident to justify every kind of spending you can imagine.