Fact checking the Vacationer in Chief

Journalism!

Mr. Bush, relaxed and primed for his vacation, scolded Congress for what he called its poor management of transportation financing.

In a nod to using earmarks to pay for transportation projects like the one supposed to pay for the “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska, Mr. Bush said:

“From my perspective, the way it seems to have worked is that each member on that committee gets to set his or her own priority first, and then whatever is left over is spent through a funding formula. That’s not the right way to prioritize the people’s money.”

Mr. Bush aimed most of his criticism at the Democrats. He said he wished that the Democratic-controlled Congress “would become more prone to deliver pieces of legislation that matter, as opposed to being the investigative body.”

“I mean,” he added, “there have been over 600 different hearings, and yet they’re struggling with getting appropriations bills to my desk.”

Congress’s progress on appropriations is slightly ahead of where it was a year ago, when Congress was in Republican hands and passed into law 2 of the 11 major spending bills.

Not that catching him lying is going to stop him. Anyway, though, more fun from the relaxed and primed preznit.

The news conference was held hours after Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq had met Iranian leaders in Tehran, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mr. Maliki was shown in news reports holding hands and smiling with Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Mr. Bush dismissed the friendly imagery. “Generally, the way these things work is you try to be cordial to the person you’re with,” he said. “And so you don’t want the picture to be kind of, you know, duking it out,” he said while shadowboxing, “ ‘O.K., put up your dukes.’ That’s an old boxing expression.”