Surely he jests

Do as I say:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush, facing a Democratic-controlled Congress for the first time, is urging lawmakers to work with his administration and warning that "political statements" in the form of legislation would result in a stalemate.
"Together, we have a chance to serve the American people by solving the complex problems that many don't expect us to tackle, let alone solve, in the partisan environment of today's Washington," Bush wrote in a guest column for The Wall Street Journal posted on the newspaper's Web site Tuesday night.
... "If the Congress chooses to pass bills that are simply political statements, they will have chosen stalemate," Bush wrote. ...

"Bush wrote" -- OK, sure. That's not a warning, it's a threat: I'll veto everything you pass if you try to get in the way of my escalation plan. "The partisan environment of today's Washington" is largely the creation of his deputy chief of staff, who probably wrote those words. Bring it on.