Hey, Lucky Duckies! by Paul Krugman ... An even better example is the failure of Congress to provide adequate funds for the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The details of the legislative maneuvering are complex, but what it comes down to is that conservatives showed no interest in maintaining adequate funding for this highly successful program. The sums involved are not large, by Washington standards. But the results will be dramatic: according to Office of Management and Budget estimates, 900,000 children will lose health insurance over the next three years. We are, of course, now living in what George W. Bush has called the "era of personal responsibility": if a child chooses to have parents who can't afford health care, that child will have to accept the consequences. But there may also be political calculation involved. Again, the government mustn't do anything good, because then people might not realize that government is bad. Understand?

Oh I understand Paul. I figured it out quite some time ago. I wrote as early as 2000 that many people were under the naive impression that Bush was a centrist who only did certain wacky things in order to appease the right-wing of his party. I kept on asking people why they wouldn't consider an alternate explanation: that Bush is as right-wing as they come, but he knows how to PRETEND to be a centrist so as to fool others (like John DiLulio) into believing that he actually cares. Bush may, in fact, THINK he cares about people. But he just doesn't care about them enough to do actually do anything to help them. That's the reality of Bush's compassion. More...

Some people — moderate Republicans who aren't ready to admit what has happened to their party, and Democrats who think their party can appease the right by making its own promises of smaller government — still don't get it. They imagine that at some point the right will decide that it has gotten what it wants. But the right's ambitions have no limits, and nothing moderates can offer will appease it. Eventually the public, which actually benefits from most of the programs the right is determined to abolish, will figure that out. But how fast voters figure it out depends a lot on whether moderate politicians clearly articulate the issues, or try to escape detection by sounding like conservatives.

Amazing. Someone actually finally gets its. I think it took Krugman a while to wake up to the reality of just how the Bushies operate. But he is a true-believer now. Glad to have you on the team Paul.