12-year-old boy takes heat from wingnuts

Here, too, we have kids protesting the veto of SCHIP. From a demonstration Oct. 4 at Lincoln Diaz-Balart's office in Miami.

Last weekend the Democratic weekly radio speech was given by a 12-year-old Baltimore boy, Graeme Frost, who talked about the way the SCHIP program had helped his low-income family overcome injuries that he and one of his sisters suffered in an auto accident. The far right wingnuts not only attack SCHIP, they go after the C in the acronym -- the CHILD who dares to speak against them. You'd think a kid would be safe from political combat, but no, the wingnuts are after him full blast: read about it here on DailyKos.

Here in Miami-Dade our Chairman Joe Garcia criticized Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21) with a rather mild comment on the Republican congressman, who votes against SCHIP for American children but then enjoys publicity for helping handicapped Ukrainian youngsters. The congressman's taxpayer-financed office ripped into Joe as "pathetic and pathological." Well, goodness, such heat.

They must be so nervous as they see oblivion ahead -- the permanent minority status that their cold ideology deserves.

UPDATE: The saga of Graeme Frost is on the front page of the NY Times Wednesday, as well as many other places, and the NY Times editorials include a plea to over-ride the veto.

UPDATE II: I heard Rush Limbaugh defending his smearing of the Frost family. I was in the car and couldn't take notes, but one of his bloviations was especially memorable: The Frost family priced health insurance at $1,200 a month "which they clearly could afford" so they chose not to have health insurance, he said. This is one of the wild arguments used by the wingnuts: that it was a "choice" of the Frosts not to have coverage. How should a family making less than $4,000 a month come up with a third of its income for health insurance?

Where, I ask, is the compassion in the Republicans' position? Doesn't compassion start with understanding of the other person's condition?

Incidentally: Limbaugh declared himself the best candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize today (maybe lots of other days, too, I'd guess). This happened in the context of his reaction to Al Gore's being considered for the Nobel. As Limbaugh himself said, why not him, since Yasser Arafat was a winner.