Aborting Health-Care Reform

As the legislative battle begins to get medical attention for millions, Senate Republicans are stalling Kathleen Sebelius' confirmation to lead the Obama reform agenda as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Barren of ideas, they are in a late-term effort to win the hearts of right-to-lifers by making an issue out of campaign contributions to Gov. Sebelius by a doctor who heads an abortion clinic.

Michael Steele, the GOP chair, has emerged from his Rush Limbaugh fiasco to harrumph: "Significant questions remain about Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ evolving relationship with a late-term abortion doctor as well as about her position on the practice of late-term abortions. The Senate should not vote, nor should Gov. Sebelius be confirmed, until these questions are answered fully and completely."

The problem is that, during the Senate hearings, there were few questions on the subject and, if any remain, the Governor answered them this week by vetoing a Kansas bill to restrict late-term abortions, saying, "The provisions in this bill that would allow for the criminal prosecution of a physician intending to comply with the law will lead to the intimidation of health care providers and reduce access to comprehensive health care for women, even when it is necessary to preserve their lives and health.

"While I agree that we should try to reduce the number of abortions, it cannot be at the increased risk to the life or health of women."

Clear enough? Majority Leader Harry Reid let his spokesman nail Steele: “This is nothing more than a baseless attack from someone desperate to stake a claim as the leader of the leaderless Republicans and get right with the right-wing of his party.”

And a misbegotten one at that.

Limbaugh/Rove: Separated at Birth?

If Spy Magazine had survived the Clinton era, its satire would have had a hard time competing with the news. What would the political pranksters have made of two rotund figures in the headlines this week?

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says with a straight face that Rush Limbaugh is the “voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”

Then Limbaugh lookalike Karl Rove complains on Fox News that Emanuel is practicing "old-style politics" in the White House:

"How does this serve the country for us at this point when we’re discussing these big, vital things like the budget and health care and the stimulus bill and the omnibus spending bill--how does it well serve the country for this little sideshow concocted in the chief of staff’s office in the West Wing?"

Rove, now a paid bloviator for Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, is not in the same paycheck league as Limbaugh, who has a talk radio contract worth $400 million, but as the biggest gasbags in the conservative alternate reality, there are striking similarities.

Limbaugh is thriving on the negative notice from the White House and the backtracking Republican Chairman Michael Steele, and Rove is putting a brave face on the upcoming Congressional grilling about his role in firing US Attorneys for not being political enough, calling it a "show trial."

All that's missing is Spy showing them side by side and asking, "Separated at Birth?"

Those Titillating Republicans

In all the hooha between Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh, the GOP is overlooking the fact that, by long tradition, John McCain is the titular head of their party.

That precept struck me in 1964 during a long conversation with former President Eisenhower. Discussing various issues, he clearly could not bring himself to mention Richard Nixon by name but kept calling him "the titular head of the party" as their 1960 candidate, even though Ike himself was the most recent Republican to occupy the White House.

This year, Republicans are no more enamored of McCain than Ike was of Nixon back then. Their 2008 candidate was non grata at the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend, where they also pummeled their 21st century Ike, George W. Bush.

The only prominent national politician who seems to recognize McCain's standing is his former opponent, Barack Obama, who had the Arizonan at his side today as he ordered his administration to conduct a review of how contracts are awarded throughout the government.

At a White House meeting last week, McCain had needled the President about the extravagant cost of new helicopters for the Commander-in-Chief and this week is pressuring him to do something about earmarks in the budget.

While most Republicans are howling in the wilderness with Limbaugh and Steele, John McCain is acting every inch as the titular head of the party, the loyal opposition on substantive issues.

Hearing Voices: GOP Fever Dreams

In this national nightmare, it's hard to tell if all the voices we hear are real or the products of overheated imaginations.

Was that the new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele saying yesterday that the Obama stimulus plan was "laughable" and that the economic mess is only "about 18 months old. The reality of it is, Bush inherited a recession. He got us through that recession”?

Could that have been Ron Paul, back from the media dead, grousing about three Senate Republicans who "caved in and went with the Democrats"?

In a ghostly YouTube video, Paul is his old cranky self about both parties: "It's like they're born-again budget conservatives. Where were we in the past eight years, when we could have done something...So we can't blame the Democrats for the conditions we have. We have to blame both parties and presidents of the last several decades to have generated this huge government."

Paul wants the economy stimulated privately. "We need a lot more spending," he says with his usual grip on reality, "but it has to be done by market forces, by individuals, by businesses making proper decisions."

And off in the distance, another Texas Republican is crowing about terrorist tactics on the stimulus bill. According to the Washington Post, Rep. Pete Sessions "suggested last week that the party is learning from the disruptive tactics of the Taliban, and the GOP these days does have the bravado of an insurgent band that has pulled together after a big defeat to carry off a quick, if not particularly damaging, raid on the powers that be."

It's not unusual for patients in critical condition to be ranting, but the Republicans may want to set up an isolation ward to keep all this sad stuff from being overheard.