Strange Outrage

The National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez has an odd threshold for outrage.

A couple years ago, after Mel Gibson made remarks denying the magnitude of the Holocaust [1], she said, "I give the guy the benefit of the doubt." [2]

But when our own Roger Hickey said, [3] "One hundred and fifty-six House Members declared themselves enemies of children and families" by denying health insurance to nearly 5 million kids, Lopez publicly put that in her "Starkly Outrageous File." [4]

Million of kids without health insurance? No outrage there.

Lopez's fellow National Review editors [5] tried to soothe nervous Republicans after the vote to sustain Bush's veto, arguing that Republicans and conservatives remain in a strong position on health care issues in general.

Of course, no poll backs up that claim. A recent survey taken during the children's health insurance debate found only 26% of the country trusts Republicans over Democrats to improve health care. [6]

And while the National Review assures conservatives that "Universal coverage, [the Democrats'] ideal, is not the public’s greatest concern," in fact 60 percent of Americans -- including nearly half of Republicans -- not only want our government to guarantee health coverage for everyone [7], but are willing to pay more in taxes to achieve it.

Even larger numbers than that support expanding SCHIP [8] to cover millions more kids.

It's a wild guess, but I bet more Americans will be outraged at the enemies of working families who need health insurance, than at those who accurately call them, "enemies."