Now that Dick is Away, Top Reps. Wont Play, Bush Get's Nixon Treatment

May 10 (EIRNS) - Eleven Republican Members of Congress met Tuesday May 8 with Bush, Rove, Hadley, Rice, Gates and others at the White House, just after Cheney left town, to read Bush the riot act on the Iraq War. They reportedly told Bush that there will be no Republican Party left if he doesn't get the hell out of that mess. The delegation, led by Cong. Mark Kirk (Ill.) and Charlie Dent (Pa.), also included Fred Upton (Mich.), Mike Castle (Del.), Tom Davis (Va.), Todd Platts (Pa.), Jim Ramstad (Minn.), Jo Ann Emerson (Mo.), Jim Gerlach (Pa.), Jim Walsh (N.Y.), and Ray LaHood (Ill.).

Tim Russert of NBC reported, on a leak from the Republicans, that the members told the President (in Russert's words), "The word about the war and its progress cannot come from the White House or even you, Mr. President. There is no longer any credibility. It has to come from Gen. Petraeus." MSNBC commentators on Wednesday evening compared this meeting (while admitting it did not have the same intense import) to the 1974 meeting of Senators Hugh Scott and Barry Goldwater at the White House with Richard Nixon, to tell him the jig was up on Watergate.