GOP Congress ticks off White House on border security front

For anyone that has been following the immigration battle in the Senate, and the utter frustration coming from the White House as a result, the latest Senate bill passed that diverts some Iraq war money to the U.S. border patrol is enough to make you hold your head and laugh out loud.  You simply cannot put into words how angry White House officials have been at GOP leaders like Bill Frist over the immigration dispute.  John McCain and Ted Kennedy had a bill all worked out -- a bill that the White House supported.  Now immigration reform is being stalled, and the diverting of $1.9 billion worth of Iraq war money to step up border security efforts is making the White House lose its temper:

..the White House said the bill contains too manyitems that are "unrelated to the war or emergency hurricane reliefneeds." It said a final House-Senate compromise on it "must remainfocused on addressing urgent national priorities while maintainingfiscal discipline."

The White House has pretty much lost all control of the Legislative Branch as we approach the 2006 midterm elections.

But surprisingly, the vote was not supported by a number of Democrats, including Hillary Clinton:

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., said Gregg's cuts would "take money from troop pay, body armorand even joint improvised explosive device defeat fund. Now that is afalse choice and it is a wrong choice."

Republican Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire authored the bill, and gave this reasoning for it:

"Fighting the war in Iraq is critical to this war on terrorism.Fighting the war in Afghanistan is critical to this war on terrorism.But I have to think equally important is making sure that our bordersare secure. That is as big an issue as we have today in the area offighting the war on terrorism. We can't be effective on that issueunless we have the resources and the people in order to take care ofsecuring the border."

I happen to think that Gregg is right in what he said regarding the two issues being equal.  But are they related?  In other words, is it right to take a cut funds from an issue and appropriate them to an issue that is completely separate?  Probably not.  So I can see where Hillary is coming from.  But such a bill shows how the White House has completely lost its control over the Senate and the Congress.