Harold Ford, Jr. sides with Bush on SCHIP

Bill Press, who launches his weekday morning radio show out of the Center for American Progress, is interviewing Harold Ford, Jr. on the radio this morning. Ford, as most of you here know, is the current head of the Democratic Leadership Conference (DLC), the corporatist wing of the Democratic Party, founded by Bill and Hill. Ford, as any regular Kossack also knows, debated Markos on Meet the Press in August and was something of a shmuck back then. This morning he outdid himself.

Press, whose show I don't regularly listen to, is a self-identified Clintonista & Washington insider.

He starts by saying "I've got a slightly different view about [SCHIP]" than my Democratic colleagues about President Bush's veto. While I didn't make it to the computer fast enough to make more of a transcript, Ford recommended that Democrats "compromise" in order to make the bill amenable to Bush's desired limitations. If the president refuses to sign a bill that helps poor children, he says, give him a bill that he can sign. Ford adds, 'I'm more concerned about all these poor kids who are walking into hospitals and being refused care.' Otherwise, he says, it is the Democrats' fault that a bill doesn't pass and that poor children might lose their health insurance. He literally says, "don't hold these kids hostage to a political partisan debate." Really? Partisan, Harold? In my book, if Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch are both voting for and speaking out in favor of this bill, it's not partisan, you wanker.

This came on the heels of Press playing quotes from Pelosi asking what Bush has against the middle class, and Press explaining that SCHIP is more likely to be used by states' block grants to help middle class families who can't afford insurance to be able to afford private insurance (i.e. subsidies). That Ford instead accepts Bush's basic premise and "strawman" is itself disconcerting. That we don't have another of this special brand of Lieberdems in the Senate... I guess I'm not so sorry.

As a post script, I'd like to add that someone in Tennessee wrote about Ford and his DLC cohorts have been trying to unseat Steve Cohen, who replaced Ford in the House. Cohen has been an outspoken progressive, and it would be a great loss if he were replaced by a Lieberdem-esque Bushbot.