He’s at it again, and so is the media:

…President George Bush and his Cabinet members assembled to answer questions regarding his administrations plans for 2007, though the President made a point of calling for bipartisanship amongst lawmakers on the eve of the 110th Congress’ first meeting tomorrow.

Bush opened by saying, “The Congress has changed; our obligations to the country haven’t changed.”

Emphasizing the need for Democrats and Republicans alike to cooperate, Bush said, “It’s time to set aside politics and focus on the future.”

It’s amazing how he is able to make announcements like this one and not have everyone in the media–who know full well how Republicans and especially Bush have abused Democrats over the past six years, even relative to normal political standards–break out laughing.

Let’s remember that just two months ago, right after the elections, Bush said the exact same thing: challenged the Democrats to be bipartisan, as if that’s exactly how Bush and the Republicans had been for the six years prior. Then Bush instantly turned around–and by instantly, I mean the same day he met with Democratic leaders–and pushed for an incredibly partisan lame-duck congressional agenda that he hoped to get passed before Democrats could take charge.

Bush admonished Democrats to be bipartisan and then immediately pushed for the most extreme partisan agenda imaginable, including oil drilling, the Bolton nomination, warrantless surveillance authorization–and then he even tried to get his most outrageously extreme judicial nominees re-nominated.

But now, just a few months later, Bush is doing the exact same thing–and no one I can see in the media is bringing up what Bush did before, nor are they calling him out very much on what he’s doing now.

Because Bush is doing it again: at the exact same time he is “challenging” Democrats to be bipartisan–again, as if the GOP had been the shining example of bipartisanship–Bush also pushed an incredibly partisan piece of budgetary legerdemain, one which keeps all of Bush’s tax cuts for the rich while cutting Democratic wishes:

President Bush on Wednesday challenged Democrats taking over Congress to join him in balancing the budget within five years and urged them to cut thousands of pet projects from future spending bills.

Top Democrats reacted cautiously — or not at all — to Bush’s plan, which assumes Congress will renew tax rate cuts passed in 2001 and maintain tax cuts on investments, inheritances and many other items.

Asked why all the tax cuts for the rich should stay in place, a Bush official responded, “We face a spending problem, not a revenue problem. We’re not undertaxed right now.” As if “we” includes the middle class and the super-rich in one boat.

Not to mention that Bush is acting as if budget-balancing has been his idea all along–as if he did not explode spending nor did he fail to stem the historic pork-barrel orgy the Republican Party orchestrated over the past several years.

Naturally, what Bush is trying to do (aside from erasing the past six years from memory) is move the goal posts from the Democrat’s end zone to his own 20-yard-line, trying to make the extreme agenda he’s been setting since the election seem like an equal starting point which is the very picture of bipartisan cooperation.

Don’t expect the media to call him on it, though.

Update: Think Progress has a good article showing how Bush, who admonishes Democrats not to “play politics,” has done virtually nothing but throughout the last term of Congress. (Not to say he hasn’t before then as well.)