White House Blames Big Government on Congressional Republicans

Neither George Bush nor Karl Rove have been shy about the fact that compassionate conservatism is at odds with limited-government conservatism. As David Keene recently told CBS News, "I've been to no end of meetings where [the president's] chief advisers have said, 'Watch not how much we spend but how we spend it.'"

Now that Democrats control Congress, however, the White House is shifting its rationalization of fiscal profligacy. As Fred Barnes reports,

Bush has never been known as a spending hawk. But aides now say he was "frustrated" at times by the insistence of congressional Republicans that he shy away from vetoes. They concede, however, that he willingly signed a farm bill in 2002, perhaps the most egregious of spending bills in his first term. The excuse was 2002 was an election year.

Related: Bob Novak, "Bush's Veto Strategy."