Mr. Red Ink

George Bush has retrieved the veto pen from the cobwebbed drawer of his desk.

The great irony, of course, is that this is the president who deserves a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for turning the largest surpluses in American history into the largest deficits.

George Bush is Mr. Red Ink.

For six years and 10 months George Bush spent like a drunken sailor — on domestic programs, foreign entanglements, even lavishing tax breaks on the wealthiest of Americans. Now he wants us to believe he cares about the budget.

When Republicans controlled the spending in Congress, he did not veto a single bill. He wanted money for everything from No Child Left Behind to national parks to bridges to nowhere to wars to nowhere. Good projects and bad. He presided over the growth of congressional earmarks, which totaled 1,400 when he arrived and has exploded to over 14,000 last year.

George Bush exerted no effort to curb Republican congressional spending and accepted the notion that “deficits don’t matter” — and yet now he has decided he is a fiscal conservative after all.

He even has seen one of his first vetoes overridden. And my guess is that it won’t be the last. Children’s health will be next once Democrats and Republicans work out compromise legislation. The use of the veto pen is a hollow gesture at best, a cynical political ploy at worst.

In any case, it is about as convincing as Donald Trump complaining about the cost of his Starbucks. It leaves us all shaking our heads.