Republican House Policy Committee Chairman Thaddeus McCotter rips "Beijing George" Bush in a memo being passed around Capitol Hill:

Today, in his final term, the wildly unpopular President George W. Bush boarded Air Force One bound for the Beijing Olympics and a meeting with his chum Hu Jintao, the dapper ruler of a nuclear armed, communist dictatorship. ... Perhaps our Compassionate Conservative-in-Chief will bring our absent Democrat Congress some 'Made in (communist) China' souvenir t-shirts: 'Bush went to Beijing and all I got was this lousy five week, paid vacation.' "

McCotter wants President Bush to call Congress back from its August recess to vote to expand offshore drilling. Na ga ha pen. As the White House explained, there's no way the House Democrats would allow a vote anyway. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is hoping to run out the clock and get an energy bill more to her liking next year. The GOP obviously senses a political winner, never mind the dubious case for more drilling. But Pelosi's got the gavel.