The New York Timesexamined the President's rhetoric on vetoing the bipartisan CHIP bill, and found...well...nothing. In short, the paper's editorial board finds only "blind partisanship" behind the veto.
Washington Post's Eugene Robinson goes even further, and calls Bush's excuses "lies":
To say that George W. Bush spends money like a drunken sailor is to insult every gin-soaked patron of every dockside dive in every dubious port of call. If Bush gets his way, the cost of his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will soon reach a mind-blowing $600 billion. Despite turning a budget surplus into a huge deficit, the man still hasn't met a tax cut he doesn't like. And when the Republicans were in charge of Congress, Bush might as well have signed their pork-stuffed spending bills with a one-word rubber stamp: "Whatever."
So for Bush to get religion on fiscal responsibility at this late date is, well, a joke. And for him to make his stand on a measure that would have provided health insurance to needy children is a punch line that hasn't left many Republicans laughing.
Considering the popularity of the bill - and the unpopularity of Bush's veto - it's a head scratcher that all four top-tier Republican presidential candidates - Giuliani, Romney, Thompson, and McCain -- support the veto.
I know the candidates have to win a primary before facing the bulk of the American electorate, who rank Bush right up there with wart removal and genital herpes, but CHIP is popular with Republicans. It's not like the health care industry is sending money around to squelch the bill, either. As far as I can tell, the veto is just plain partisan stubbornness.
What gives? Are these guys really this bad? And why do I keep putting McCain in the "top tier" of candidates?
I flipped on last night's GOP debate for awhile and couldn't help but notice the empty podiums on stage. Those podiums belonged to the four front-runners in the Republican primary: Giuliani, McCain, Romney, and Thompson.
The debate took place at historically black Morgan State University and was scheduled to talk about issues important to African Americans. It's pretty obvious that either the top-tier Republicans don't want to be associated with African Americans, or feel the questions wouldn't play to their strengths, and they declined to show.
You have to wonder about this 'big tent' we used to hear a lot about. You might remember that though all of the candidates were invited to speak before the NAACP event, only Tom Tancredo showed up. You might also recall that all the Democratic candidates took them up on the offer.
Remember all the hooplah from the media for Democrats refusing to debate on Fox? What was that quote...how can we trust you to stand up to al Qaeda if you can't handle Fox News? Well, how can we expect these men to govern the nation if they won't talk with their own citizens?
Look, I know that Fred Thompson played a guy who wasn't from Washington, D.C., in Law and Order. That's cool. That doesn't mean he isn't actually a Washington insider. All of this is my way of saying that Chris Cillizza is both Teh Gullible and Teh Ridiculous.
For two days running now, the Washington Post's political/gossip hybrid guy has beenbreathlessly reporting on how Fred Thompson is signing on all of these D.C. insiders, even as Thompson plans to run as the D.C. outsider in his Presidential bid.
