Good Vote, Bad Vote, & Stupid Veto

Last night Congress did the right thing and passed SCHIP, a bill providing health insurance to lower income children. Ignorant of what the bill actually does, Bush plans to veto it, saying it is too expensive (although funded by cigarette taxes) at $35 billion over five years. He says this in one minute, and in the next he requests an INCREASE of $50 Billion for 2008 alone for the wars. That the health care for the kids would be funded by a cigarette tax puts icing on this cake. Marie Antoinette would be proud.

Bush continues to display his true colors, offering to do an interview with NPR but if, and only if, Juan Williams conducts the interview. Williams is also a part time contributor to, surprise, Fox News. Well, NPR declined, so Williams did the interview anyway, you guessed it, for Fox News. The subject of the interview: race relations. Bush discussing race relations on Fox Noise? Put that on the calendar!

For contrast, when Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign offered an interview to an NPR health reporter (probably to discuss her health care program), the network suggested "All Things Considered" host Melissa Block conduct the interview instead. Hillary’s campaign agreed at once.

Conversation consistent with the prior post here about GOP corruption fuels forces leading GOP candidates to criticize their own party. Massachusetts GOP candidate for Congress Jim Ogonowski is shunning his own party, and at a higher profile, presidential candidate Mitt Romney goes as far as to, while carefully crafted, throw some darts in a television ad. The Ad.

Expect more of this as the DCCC and organized Democrats begin to highlight the almost infinite pile of hanky panky perpetrated over the last seven years. The GOP is starting to crack. More on that later.

No doubt the reader has heard, but my "Stupid Move of the Week," not that the week is over yet, goes to Rudy Giuliani for his fundraiser charging an entry fee of $9.11. In addition to being offensive, the price is certified stupid as they will need 35 pounds of change for the cashier. More damaging was the response when asked about the situation, "Their decision to ask individuals for that amount was an unfortunate choice."

We seem to be making lots of unfortunate choices these days, including our House of Representatives (I had a bad feeling this would happen) who just couldn’t resist condemning the MoveOn ad in the paper. While our House of Representatives conducts the vitally important task of evaluating and condemning advertisements, I nominate they take aim at the Cialis commercials, the Cave Men, the western style weed killer showdowns, and anything containing the song, "This is God’s Country."