GOP: We never liked Bush!

Are you kidding me?

Now, the GOP lickspittles in congress, who have prostrated themselves before George W. Bush for the past five years, expect us to believe they did it all through gritted teeth?

The Washington Post reports with utter credulity the new Republican Party spin that their problems with Bush go all the way back to the beginning.

For years, the Bush White House and its allies on Capitol Hill seemed like one of the most unified teams Washington had ever seen, passing most of Bush's agenda with little dissent. Privately, however, many lawmakers felt underappreciated, ignored and sometimes bullied by what they regarded as a White House intent on running government with little input from them. Often it was to pass items -- an expanded federal role in education under the No Child Left Behind law and an expensive prescription drug benefit under Medicare -- that left conservatives deeply uneasy.

What Bush is facing now, beyond just election-year jitters by legislators eyeing his depressed approval ratings, is a rebellion that has been brewing since the days when he looked invincible, say many lawmakers and strategists. Newly unleashed grievances could signal even bigger problems for Bush's last two years in office, as he would be forced to abandon a governing strategy that until recently counted on solid support from congressional Republicans.

Please.

Qu'elle coincidence that the GOP's willingness to declare its distance from this disastrous presidency emerges only in the face of a catastrophic election year. Oh, that their dissatisfaction with this "non-responsive and arrogant" White House had manifested itself prior to, or even during, Bush's methodical campaign to remake American government and society to conform to his own retrograde political ideology. The country might have benefitted from a scaling back of their leader's dangerous ambitions.

As they realize Bush has thrown them under a bus, though, suddenly they find their voices. Those approval numbers in the thirties must be pretty scary, indeed.

And, I guess all that crap about how the Feingold censure resolution is rallying "the base" to Bush's side must be just that: crap. Otherwise, the GOP would be jockeying for position under Bush's armpit, rather than trying to convince us that they never liked him all that much to begin with.