“About this much thought goes into my decisions.”

While Al Gore’s seething indictment of the Bush Administration, The Assault On Reason, continues its assault on the New York Times Best Seller’s List, President Bush has been busy vindicating its title. No longer worried about his perpetually falling approval rating (mainly because its so far down, there is no return), Bush has decided to dig in his heels and go against public opinion, common sense, and overall decency when it comes to almost every decision he now makes.

First came his hypocritical decision to commute Scooter Libby’s prison sentence two weeks ago, when he decided that Scooter’s 30 month punishment was “excessive.” Even though, as I said last week, Libby was prosecuted by a Bush appointed U.S. attorney, convicted by a jury, sentenced by a Republican appointed judge, had his appeal denied by a three judge panel that included Republican appointed judges, and was handed a sentence which thousands of other people around the country have received for the exact same crime. Now, many people would consider Libby’s commuted prison term unreasonable, corrupt, or borderline illegal. Bush himself said at the time of the crime he would fire anyone found responsible for the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s name. But that would have been too principled a stand for Bush to take, so he decided go for the underhanded scumbag route instead.

Congress, meanwhile, this week decided to act on a problem that one would think has near universal support: children’s health insurance. While they may not be able to agree on much of anything, from immigration reform to the War in Iraq, the House of Representatives did decide bi-partisan bill that would expand medical coverage for underage kids.

Enter the White House. From the New York Times:

The White House said on Saturday that President Bush would veto a bipartisan plan to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program, drafted over the last six months by senior members of the Senate Finance Committee.
The vow puts Mr. Bush at odds with the Democratic majority in Congress, with a substantial number of Republican lawmakers and with many governors of both parties, who want to expand the popular program to cover some of the nation’s eight million uninsured children.

The current program expires in September and Congressional action was needed to ensure that 4.1 million more children will have access to basic health care. Common sense would indicate that this bill would be a no-brainer, maybe even earn the President a couple percentage points to send his approval rating sky rocketing over the 30% barrier. Unfortunately, it seems he is more interested in satisfying insurance companies than sick children. His reasons for the upcoming veto, according to a White House spokesperson include: “The proposal would dramatically expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program, adding nonpoor children to the program, and more than doubling the level of spending. This will have the effect of encouraging many to drop private coverage, to go on the government-subsidized program.”

Holy Shit. Just imagine what chaos that would cause. People jumping ship on insurance companies that won’t even pay for treatment that they are entitled to, to a program where they are guaranteed it. Insanity.

But the coup de gras against all forms of reason still rests in Iraq, where the Bush administration continues to dig itself an ever increasing hole just so they won’t have to admit they just might have made some mistakes in the War’s justification, timing, planning, execution, and follow up. Finally, though, Congressional Democrats seem to be stepping up to the plate. Almost a year after they were put in office to end the war, they seem to be willing to take the fight to the necessary next level. Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press was a start, where Senators Jim Webb (D-VA) got in Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) face about the right course of action and bogus justifications for continuing to “stay the course.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also announced yesterday that the Senate will be holding an all night filibuster on Iraq on Tuesday night so that Republicans can justify the continued presence of troops, in spite of five years of mayhem, misdeeds, and mistakes. The White House even released a report showing 10 of the 18 benchmarks it set forth six months ago have not been met. Iraqi parliament, who has enacted none of the legislation recommended by the U.S., will be taking the entire month of August off to vacation. White House spokesman Tony Snow’s reasoning behind their extended break was it is “130 degrees in Baghdad” in August. He’s right. I mean it’s not like our troops still have to put on their uniforms, armor, and weapons and battle insurgents in that same scorching heat. Why should Parliament have to convene in an air conditioned room and make decisions for a country engulfed in a civil war?

Now comes news that the military is considering actually expanding the surge and sending more troops in. At the same time, Dick Cheney is pushing ever harder for military action in Iran. I’d say I am surprised, after all the failures of this war that they actually want to expand it into a regional conflict that would require vast amounts of troops that we simply don’t have, but it just keeps within their pattern of ignoring the facts, the American people, the world, and just plain common sense.

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer