corrente

I understand, I really do. I mean, it's easy to see how a kid growing up in Bush's privileged position would come to think that the law was optional—the drunk driving thing, the TANG thing, Leadfoot's little episode, those lovable twins with their fake IDs, even Bush vGore—but Bush really needs to understand, now that he's an adult, that when Congress passes a law that applies to the Executive branch, he needs to remember his oath of office and carry it out.

For example: Last week, David Broder (of all people) drew our attention to this law in particular:

President Bush is facing an early legal deadline to deliver what he has been most resistant to providing: a set of specific benchmarks for measuring progress toward military and political stability in Iraq.

Under a little-noticed provision of the defense spending bill passed by Congress in May, Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld has until July 11 to send Capitol Hill a "comprehensive set of performance indicators and measures of stability and security" two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
(via WaPo)

July 11? Why, that would be today! And has Bush obeyed the law? What do you think?

Kennedy protested that the Bush administration did not meet Monday's deadline for a report on the war in Iraq. In the report, required as part of a war spending bill passed two months ago, the Defense Department was supposed to update the progress of training Iraqi security forces and give Congress an estimate of how many troops will be needed in Iraq through 2006.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the report is in the final stages and that Pentagon officials are consulting with Congress about the timing for submitting it.
(via AP)

Gee, I guess I must be really confused about how our Constitutional system works.

Congress (and a Republican Congress, mind you) passes a law saying deliver a report by July 11.

So Bush (a) doesn't deliver the report on time and (b) is "consulting" with Congress about when to submit it. But the law is the law; what's to consult about? Why not just submit the report by deadline?

NOTE I love the URL that AP used for this story (which was about Bush's latest He Man speech at Quantico):

ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush

Let's get out our magic decoder rings:

ongoing_publicrelations_whitehouse

Almost as if there were truth to those nasty rumors Colonel Gardiner's been floating, about a campaign of strategic deception designed to sell Americans on the war....