With all the attention being paid to the President's speech on corporate responsibility, not too many people noticed an effort by the President in his July 8 press conference to assign blame to Congress -- more specifically, to the Democratic-controlled Senate -- for failure to move a whole lot of legislation to his desk.

We can understand why the White House is trying to allay the general impression that the Administration is in a rudderless, reactive, and defensive posture on a wide range of foreign and domestic policy issues. But a case-by-case review of the legislation the President complained about in his press conference shows he should look at his own party -- and in some cases, just look in the mirror -- for the real obstructionists in Washington.

• The President twice scored Congress for not moving fast enough to give him Trade Promotion Authority. In fact, this legislation is being delayed because Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott is holding up appointment of Senators to a House-Senate conference committee. More broadly, an agreement on the substance of the bill could be quickly achieved if the White House would convince House Republican leaders to sign off on trade adjustment assistance reforms and health insurance for dislocated workers -- provisions for which the Administration signaled support when they were voted on in the Senate.
• The President came dangerously close to accusing Senate appropriators of denying funds for the fight against terrorism because they haven't yet sent him a supplemental appropriations bill for the current fiscal year, or a defense appropriations bill for the next fiscal year. But in fact, action on both sets of appropriations is being stalled due to veto threats from the White House because the Senate wants to appropriate more money than the Administration has called for.
• The President also demanded that Congress "act to make us less dependent on foreign sources of oil" by sending him an energy bill. That's a real howler, since the Administration has consistently opposed any serious efforts to reduce dependence on petroleum in the transportation industry. The energy bill is sitting in a conference committee that has met only once, and the Administration-backed House bill and the bipartisan Senate bill are significantly different on many topics. If the Administration has done anything tangible to break the deadlock, it's a deep secret.
• The President also scored the Senate for failure to move on legislation authorizing tax credits for contributions to faith-based organizations. As he knows, there's a broad bipartisan agreement in the Senate on this legislation, which will undoubtedly pass this year. And in fact, Senate Leader Tom Daschle tried to bring the bill to the floor through a unanimous-consent time agreement just prior to the July 4 recess, and Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott objected.
• Finally, and most disingenuously, the President pretended the Senate has been dragging its feet on the corporate responsibility issue, citing House passage of a weak package of pension and corporate reforms earlier in the year. In fact, the Senate was debating a much tougher package as he spoke -- a package the White House had been quietly opposing until the WorldCom scandal made any open opposition politically scandalous.

The bottom line is that the Administration and its troops on Capitol Hill are not terribly credible on the subject of legislative leadership. GOP pollsters have been telling their members of Congress all year that they should just keep the focus off domestic issues and on the fight against terrorism, and all will be well in November. As for the White House, one of the little-known distinctions held by the Bush Administration is that it has yet to send a single piece of specific legislation to Congress. Instead, the Administration typically releases a statement, or a list of "principles," and then lets Congress work its will. There's nothing inherently wrong with this approach, but it does not indicate a President who is impatiently waiting on Congress to act on "his" agenda.

Instead of efforts to evade responsibility, the President and the party that promised a true "era of responsibility" need to show some real and abiding leadership.