I was talking more political wise. Are you saying that the liberal press would not run headlines for weeks saying "Bush vetoes campaign finace reform, favors special interest".
See it comes back to my original point, that your perfect world doesn't exist.
There is a liberal press that Bush has to deal with. That's reality and he took away some of their bullets. I know you don't like it, but whoever said that this is a perfect world.
There never was a great deal of public interest in CFR, contrary to what a few media organizations would have you believe. Had Bush clearly explained that this bill was unconstitutional and instructed Congress to strike the problematic parts and resend him the bill, he'd have come out of this episode looking better than ever (and immune to criticism).
Think back to stem cell research: he explained his views to the public and they respected his integrity. This would have been no different.