October 18, 2007, S-CHIP Shot
Sentencing themselves to political death (in service of the all-important insurance industry), the House Republicans voted to sustain the President's veto of a bill expanding the popular "S-CHIP" health insurance program for children, with a veto override failing by just 13 votes. Congratulations to the Republicans, having generated record deficits through massive tax cuts in favor of those who can most afford to pay taxes, to have had the fiscal discipline to try to restore some semblance of budget sanity on the backs of children, and their health!
Way to go! This seems to confirm my view that the GOP is almost giddy in their efforts toward conceding the next election to Hillary; it seems that they also want to make sure she has a fillibuster proof margin in the Senate, and such a wide working margin in the House, that if a GOP president is ever elected again, that he (it will be a he) will have a Democratic super-majority capable of overriding any veto, and by 2012, a Democratic Senate with enough votes to override a veto and convict on an impeachment. Not to worry, as Hillary will probably be there for two terms, possibly succeeded by her Secretary of State (Al Gore).
It seems without Karl Rove on the payroll, the Republican media machine seems to be falling apart almost as fast as the party itself; Eric Boehlert (interviewed on this blog here) gives us this take on the simultaneous meltdown of right-wing-noise-and-hate-machine stalwarts O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter and Malkin, coinciding with the melt-down of the party writ-large.
Who knows? Cheap shots of attaching riders to bills to paint Democrats as "soft on defense" or "soft on terror" just won't mean quite as much as cutting off the kids' medical insurance, which, if taken to its logical extreme, will result in the bankruptcy if not utter penury of millions of working Americans. And enough Americans will finally come to realize that appeals to hyperbolized fear or good old racism moral values just don't cut it when one political party is trying to destroy their families... and the other party, for all of its shortcomings... is not.
Who knows where this will go? If I were Hillary, though... well, let's just say that it's never too early to start getting fitted for that inaugural gown pants-suit.