Lobbyist Logic

I know you have all been worried at my seeming recovery from my obsession with Ed Gillespie. But worry not–the dearth of Gillespie posts was mostly explained by my travel schedule (which gets really bad again this week, then gets better), and not any disinterest in the guy who took over after they fired Bush’s brain.

And this, I guess, is the kind of logic you get from the Lobbyist-in-Chief with which they replaced Bush’s brain, from this NYT article chronicling how glum Republicans are at their diminishing (political) fortunes.

At the White House, administration officials urged CongressionalRepublicans to try to remain positive and ride out the current turmoil.Ed Gillespie, a senior adviser to Mr. Bush, told the visitors,according to multiple accounts, that had Republicans sided withDemocrats on the health program, they would have opened themselves towithering criticism from conservatives and been in a worse positionthan they are now.

Let’s see… "had Republicans sided with Democrats" on the S-CHIP vote. I wonder how Representatives Tom Davis, Heather Wilson, and Don Young feel about that assertion, since they were among the 45 Republicans in the House who voted for S-CHIP? Perhaps it’s no accident that Tom Davis is one of the Republicans quoted as complaining about the Republican stance on S-CHIP.

“We need to be on offense,” said Representative Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican considering a Senate run.

Likewise, I wonder how Senators like Orrin Hatch and Kit Bond–and the 16 other Republicans who voted for S-CHIP–feel about Gillespie’s suggestion that Republicans didn’t side with Democrats on this bill. Last I checked, no one doubted that Orrin Hatch was a Republican, but I guess the Lobbyist-in-Chief knows better?

I’m also curious what Gillespie, who is himself Catholic, thinks about the campaign run by Catholics United, which is targeting 10 purportedly pro-life Representatives (including three in my heavily Catholic state!!) for their votes against S-CHIP. It seems to me that these 10 Representatives have "opened themselves to withering criticism from conservatives." But I guess that’s not the kind of conservative that the Lobbyist-in-Chief had in mind?

In short, Gillespie’s public accounting of the benefit that opposition to S-CHIP will have for the Republican party rings pretty hollow, if not outright false.

But I guess that’s why Carl Hulse received "multiple accounts" of Gillespie’s ridiculous comments?