Schlepping up the hill to bitch-slap the Resident...

On Tuesday the Resident was confronted with the reality of 11 unhappy GOP moderates from the House of Representatives, who schlepped up to the White House to tell their Idiot Prince that his headstrong, stubborn insistence on doing things his way in Iraq, and his idiotic refusal to accept reality - was destroying the GOP, and by the way, does he even care about that part???

House Republican moderates, in a remarkably blunt White House meeting, warned President Bush this week that his pursuit of the war in Iraq is risking the future of the Republican Party and that he cannot count on GOP support for many more months.

The meeting, which ran for an hour and a half Tuesday afternoon, was disclosed by participants yesterday as the House prepared to vote this evening on a spending bill that could cut funding for the Iraq war as early as July. GOP moderates told Bush they would stay united against the latest effort by House Democrats to end U.S. involvement in the war. Even Senate Democrats called the House measure unrealistic.

But the meeting between 11 House Republicans, Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, White House political adviser Karl Rove and presidential press secretary Tony Snow was perhaps the clearest sign yet that patience in the party is running out. The meeting, organized by Rep. Charlie Dent (Pa.), one of the co-chairs of the moderate "Tuesday Group," included Reps. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), Michael N. Castle (Del.), Todd R. Platts (Pa.), Jim Ramstad (Minn.) and Jo Ann Emerson (Mo.).

"It was a very remarkable, candid conversation," Davis said. "People are always saying President Bush is in a bubble. Well, this was our chance, and we took it."

Yeah. I just bet it was. Candid and remarkable, I mean.

But still, even as pressure mounts, the Resident digs his heels in deeper, refusing any compromise on funding the war effort, and threatening yet another veto…

We have long since passed the point that digging in and hunkering down had a prayer of working. These storms shant pass. They shall just settle in overhead and rain down with fury, for as long as it takes.