Let the bipartisanship begin

Reports are coming out that President Bush wants to push through the U.N. nomination of the controversial John Bolton and a variety of bills including the Terrorist Surveillance Act of 2006, bipartisan energy legislation, trade legislation, a federal spending bill and an agreement with India on civilian nuclear technology before the Republican controlled congress adjourns in a few weeks. However, many Republicans and Democrats do not necessary share the President’s urgency to rush all this through congress in the next couple of weeks before the leadership changes.

Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee has said he will block Bolton’s nomination. If this nomination wasn’t dead before, it certainly is now.

As for the White House legislative agenda for the lame duck congress, Senator Richard Durbin’s reaction was, "For a Republican Congress to have gone forward for two years and produced so little, and then for the president to come up with a huge agenda for the next two weeks, you have to ask him, 'Why didn't you use some of the time you spent arguing on some less important issues before?'".