As debate rages in Washington over the Bush tax cuts, set to expire at the end of this year, the Bush administration officials who initiated the steep tax cuts are celebrating what they see as an apparent victory, since signs point to a temporary extension of all the cuts. The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz interviewed Dan Bartlett, Bush’s former communications director, and Andy Card, Bush’s former chief of staff, among others, and they were pleased at how the expiration debate has played out:

“We knew that, politically, once you get it into law, it becomes almost impossible to remove it,” says Dan Bartlett, Bush’s former communications director. “That’s not a bad legacy. The fact that we were able to lay the trap does feel pretty good, to tell you the truth.” [...]

“[Democrats] are definitely on the defensive,” Card says. “The fact that the 10-year clock ran out now had a big impact on the election.”

As Media Matters notes, former Bush senior adviser Karl Rove went on Fox News this week and further laid the proverbial trap, saying “without a hint of self-awareness” that “we’ve known this was going to be happening for a decade,” while lamenting the Democrats’ inaction.

When the tax cuts were enacted, with an expiration date, Republicans and Bush officials understood the political advantages of the “fiscal time bomb” they were setting. As Kurtz puts it: “At some point in the way distant future, Democrats could be accused of raising taxes if they tried to undo the Bush breaks and return to Clinton-era levels of taxation.” Democrats understood this, too: Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) told the Washington Post at the time that “[Bush is] going to be out of office when the roof falls in.”

There was a more sinister motive for sunsetting the tax cuts beyond politics, as well. It allowed the administration to pass the bill with a lower vote count in the Senate than would otherwise be necessary. Card freely admits to Kurtz that the administration wanted “the law to be permanent but couldn’t muster the votes to trump the Byrd Rule,” which would have required a 60-vote margin for a measure that significantly increases the federal deficit more than 10 years in the future. By setting the tax cuts to expire just short of ten years, the measure passed with 58 votes.

The various sunsets also hid the true cost of the bill. As Paul Krugman wrote at the time: “The administration, knowing that its tax cut wouldn’t fit into any responsible budget, pushed through a bill that contains the things it wanted most — big tax cuts for the very, very rich — and used whatever accounting gimmicks it could find to make the overall budget impact seem smaller than it is.”

Such deception and fiscal irresponsibility hardly seem cause for celebration. But because it appears that all of the tax cuts will once again be extended, resetting the fiscal time bomb in spite of public opposition, perhaps these Bush officials are justified in their mirth.

This weekend, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich upped the ante on his recent history of inflammatory radical right-wing rhetoric. The National Review reported on Saturday that Gingrich said that President Obama only pretends to be “normal,” that he is conning Americans and that he may have a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” worldview. “What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”

Today on MSNBC, host Joe Scarborough asked incredulously, “What is he doing?” Later he asked former Bush chief of staff Andy Card if he thought Gingrich’s comments are helpful to the GOP. After a series of dodges, Card finally admitted, “I don’t think they help.” Then Scarborough asked if he was disappointed in Gingrich, and again, after dodging, Card said he is disappointed:

SCARBOROUGH: What about Newt Gingrich’s statement. What Newt Gingrich’s statements, are they hurtful for Republicans that are trying to provide strong leadership?

CARD: I don’t think they help. I don’t think that the statements that Newt Gingrich made are helpful, no. […]

SCARBOROUGH: Andy, are you disappointed by Newt Gingrich’s words? [...]

CARD: Yes, I’m disappointed.

Watch it:

Responding to Gingrich’s comments on ABC’s Good Morning America today, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Gingrich is “trying to appeal to the fringe of people who don’t think the president was born in this country.”

Last night on Fox News, Dick Cheney defended his statements regarding President Obama’s performance to date by claiming that he had never “personally attacked” Obama. Rather, Cheney insisted that all of his criticisms were focused on Obama’s policies. This morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, former White House chief of staff Andy Card echoed Cheney’s claim saying that the former vice president was right to speak out against Obama’s policies. However, Card said, Cheney should not be “criticizing the president” personally:

CARD: Dick Cheney has very strong opinion on protecting the country and I think its appropriate for him to be out there talking about that. I don’t think its appropriate for him to be criticizing the president.

SCARBOROUGH: He has been criticizing the president though.

CARD: Well, he was criticizing the policy not the president.

Card elaborated by saying that “[t]aking personal shots” at Obama would be out of line. Co-host Mika Brzezinski asked Card for an example of such personal shots:

BRZEZINSKI: Like what? … His choice of dress?

CARD: I’m not going to [give an example] because I don’t want to criticize the president. Barack Obama is my president too.

Watch it:

As ThinkProgress noted earlier today, it is a bit of a stretch for Card to claim that Cheney has not engaged in personal attacks on Obama. More interesting, however, is Card’s insistence that he himself has not and would not take “personal shots” at Obama. In fact, what Brzezinski apparently meant as a hypothetical example of a “personal shot” at Obama — criticizing his “choice of dress” — is exactly what Card did in January.

Indeed, on Michel Medved’s right-wing radio talk show, Card accused Obama of promoting a “locker room” atmosphere in the Oval Office because he and his staff do not not wear suit coats at all times. “I’m disappointed to see the casual, laissez faire, short sleeves, no shirt and tie, no jacket, kind of locker room experience that seems to be taking place in this White House and the Oval Office,” Card said. Card claimed that his former boss, President Bush, would never work without a suit coat on. Card repeated the attack on Obama’s choice of attire again in February. (In reality, Bush did at times work in the Oval Office without a suit coat.)

In recent days, several of President Bush’s closest advisers have been attacking President Obama. Vice Preisdent Cheney, for example, said that there was “a high probability” of a WMD attack if Bush’s policies were reversed, and former chief of staff Andy Card said that Obama has turned the White House into a “locker room” because he isn’t requiring staff to wear jackets at all times. Axelrod sharply responds to the “tasteless” criticisms in a new interview with the Washington Post:

I was disappointed in the Vice President’s comments, not because he said–stated the obvious which is that there are threats that are grave, but that he suggested that somehow the President’s decisions on torture in Guantanamo would increase the likelihood of that. [...]

You know, the last thing that I think we’re looking for at this juncture is advice on fiscal integrity or ethics from Karl Rove, anyone who’s read the newspapers for the last eight years would laugh at that.

So, I appreciate that President Bush has been so classy during this period, and I’m disappointed that some of the folks who worked for him didn’t–don’t share that. [...]

I mentioned Andy Card saying that we were somehow denigrating the Presidency because people were wearing short sleeves in the Oval Office. We’re wearing short sleeves because we have to roll up our sleeves and clean up the mess that we inherited.

Former White House chief of staff Andy Card said today that President Bush may jump into social networking, as he is “very technologically connected to the world.” When Politico asked if Bush would join Facebook and Twitter, Card left the door open, saying, “I don’t know that he’ll invite me to be his friend on Facebook.” Watch it:

A good start for Bush would be to figure out how to use “the Google” first.

On Thursday, the New York Times’ Sheryl Gay Stolberg wrote about how President Obama had brought “a more informal culture” to the White House, noting that he had already abandoned “an ironclad rule of the George W. Bush administration” that required a “coat and tie in the Oval Office at all times.” Later that day, former Bush White House chief of staff Andrew Card told conservative talker Michael Medved that he felt the new dress code showed a lack of “respect” for the Office of the Presidency:

CARD: I found that Ronald Reagan and both President Bushes treated the Oval Office with tremendous respect. They treated the Office of the Presidency with tremendous respect. And some of that respect was reflected in how they expected people to behave, how they expected them to dress when they walked into the symbol of freedom for the world, the Oval Office. And yes, I’m disappointed to see the casual, laissez faire, short sleeves, no shirt and tie, no jacket, kind of locker room experience that seems to be taking place in this White House and the Oval Office.

Listen here:

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