*Now* Snowe thinks jobless benefits are critical

This is rich.

After joining with her fellow Republicans to block a bill that would have extended unemployment insurance, Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine urged Democrats on Friday to put forward a separate bill to help people who have exhausted their jobless benefits....

In a letter to the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, Ms. Snowe said that a separate bill would disentangle the unemployment benefits from the larger fight.

"Separating the unemployment insurance provisions of the extenders bill and passing it as emergency legislation acknowledges the urgency of helping those who continue to look for work," Ms. Snowe wrote. "Unemployment checks inject money directly into the economy, invariably assisting in the economic recovery we all agree must be accelerated."

....

Ms. Snowe in her letter sought to demonstrate her concern about Americans who remain out of work. "The hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans who are losing jobless benefits every week deserve our immediate attention, so I am writing today to urge you to bring a free-standing extension of unemployment insurance benefits to the Senate floor for a vote early next week," she wrote. "As of today, more than 1.2 million people out of work for longer than six months are ineligible for the next tier of extended benefits, which were originally provided by the economic stimulus bill to fight the recession."

Cry us a river, Olympia. You are personally responsible for those 1.2 million losing their benefits today. Which AmericansUnited [Update: AFSCME co-sponsors the ad] wants Maine to remember: