Wash. Post quoted Rep. Putnam saying Bush "longs for" bipartisanship, ignored Putnam's false attacks on Democrats

An October 31 Washington Post article on the White House's "conclu[sion] that President Bush cannot do much business with the Democratic leadership" reported that, in a recent meeting with congressional Republicans, Bush "recalled how he had been able to work with Democrats when he was Texas governor." The Post then quoted House Republican Conference chairman Adam Putnam (FL) saying that Bush "sort of longs for those days, when both sides were genuinely interested in getting along and getting a deal." However, while quoting Putnam on the lack of "genuine[] interest in getting along" among congressional Republicans and Democrats, the Post did not note the many instances in which Putnam himself has leveled false and baseless accusations against his Democratic colleagues.

From the October 31 Post article:

The White House plans to try implementing as much new policy as it can by administrative order while stepping up its confrontational rhetoric with Congress after concluding that President Bush cannot do much business with the Democratic leadership, administration officials said.

According to those officials, Bush and his advisers blame Democrats for the holdup of Judge Michael B. Mukasey's nomination to be attorney general, the failure to pass any of the 12 annual spending bills, and what they see as their refusal to involve the White House in any meaningful negotiations over the stalemated children's health-care legislation.

White House aides say the only way Bush seems to be able to influence the process is by vetoing legislation or by issuing administrative orders, as he has in recent weeks on veterans' health care, air-traffic congestion, protecting endangered fish and immigration. They say they expect Bush to issue more of such orders in the next several months, even as he speaks out on the need to limit spending and resist any tax increases.

The events of recent weeks have "crystallized that the chances of these leaders meeting the administration halfway are becoming increasingly remote," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

Bush himself has been complaining more and more bitterly about congressional Democrats in recent weeks. In a private meeting yesterday with House Republicans in the East Room of the White House, Bush recalled how he had been able to work with Democrats when he was Texas governor and said he had hoped to find the same relationships in Washington.

"He sort of longs for those days, when both sides were genuinely interested in getting along and getting a deal," said Rep. Adam H. Putnam (R-Fla.), the chairman of the House Republican Conference, who helped organize yesterday's White House meeting, attended by about 150 Republicans.

The president offered more criticism after the session. "Congress is not getting its work done," Bush said. "We're near the end of the year, and there really isn't much to show for it."

Putnam was foremost among House Republicans who, in February, attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for her purported request for use of a military jet to travel between Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. Putnam accused Pelosi of "an arrogance of extravagance that demands a jumbo jet that costs $22,000 an hour to operate to taxi her and her buddies back and forth to California." In fact, there was no evidence Pelosi ever made such a request, as Media Matters for America noted. Putnam himself "acknowledge[d] he had no personal knowledge" of Pelosi making such a request, according to a February 20 Tampa Tribune article. The Post has glossed over Putnam's Pelosi/plane falsehood before. During an April 6 washingtonpost.com discussion, Post congressional reporter Lyndsey Layton said that she had originally noted Putnam's baseless accusation in the lead paragraph of her April 6 profile of Putnam, but "it was sliced from the final version because the editor felt the reference was dated."

Further, in an August 3 House Republican radio address, Putnam claimed that Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) said during a July 30 interview "that good reports" from Iraq "are, and I quote, 'a real big problem for Democrats,' " adding: "Congressman Clyburn's remarks were indefensible -- they were an affront to our service members and they revealed an unfortunate truth: that Democrats are politically invested in failure in Iraq." As Media Matters documented, however, Clyburn actually said -- in an interview with Post reporters Dan Balz and Chris Cillizza -- that a report by Gen. David Petraeus that the military effort in Iraq "is working very, very well at this point" and that "we would be foolish to back away from it" would cause "those 47 Blue Dogs ... to want to stay the course, and if the Republicans were to remain united, as they have been, then it would be a problem for us" - meaning that a recommendation from Petraeus against withdrawal would have impeded Democrats' efforts to garner support in Congress for legislation to begin withdrawal, not that Democrats are "politically invested in failure in Iraq," as Putnam claimed. Indeed, Clyburn went on to say: "None of us want to see a bad result in Iraq. If we are going to get in position to yield a good result, I think Democrats want to see that."

Putnam was also among the many congressional Republicans and conservative media figures to falsely characterize Democrats' Iraq plans as "their slow-bleed strategy." As Media Matters documented, the phrase "slow-bleed" was first used to characterize Democratic Iraq strategy in a February 14 Politico article. This characterization was immediately adopted by the Republican National Committee, which cited the Politico article to falsely claim that Pelosi and Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) call the Democrats' strategy "their 'slow-bleed' plan." In a February 16 article, however, the Politico confirmed that the phrase was its own formulation and "was not a term used by any Democrats or the anti-war groups supporting their efforts." Nonetheless, Putnam repeated the distortion in media appearances long after the Politico acknowledged its role in creating it.

For instance, Putnam referred to the "Democratic slow-bleed plan" on the March 29 edition of MSNBC's Tucker:

TUCKER CARLSON (host): You know, people are mad at Bush. And, so, why wouldn't Democrat -- why wouldn't Republicans, rather, conservative Republicans, distance themselves publicly from the president? There's no shame in that, is there?

PUTNAM: Well, it depends on why you're -- why you're distancing yourself.

CARLSON: Right.

PUTNAM: If you have some principled disagreement with where the president is going, that's one thing.

CARLSON: Yes.

PUTNAM: But we remain united in our effort to support our troops who are in harm's way, as opposed to the Democratic slow-bleed plan.

So, there's an example of where we are sticking together as House Republicans for something that we think is important to the security and safety of our troops, who are out there protecting us day in and day out, and -- and pushing freedom out beyond its traditional frontiers.

Putnam also used the term to describe the Democrats' Iraq strategy during an appearance on the March 29 edition of Fox News' The Big Story with John Gibson:

JOHN GIBSON (host): Republican Congressman Adam Putnam of Florida is with me now. Congressman Putnam, Nancy Pelosi cobbled together this bunch of Democrats, some of which didn't want to vote for this, others that did, obviously -- but are they ignoring reasonable warnings about what's going on? Are they pressuring the Iraqis to do what's right, or are they essentially dictating defeat for the U.S.?

PUTNAM: Well, they are doing what they said they would do, which is unveiling a different version of their slow-bleed strategy where they hamstring our commanders on the ground, they try and dictate the decisions that are being made thousands of miles from Washington D.C. in an effort to keep their own fragile caucus taped together and using baling wire and basically the pork that they loaded onto this bill, in order to have some charade of unity.