Today was SCHIP day in the U.S. House of Representatives. This was the last time the supporters (mainly Democrats) were able to land a few body shots before the vote to override the President’s veto.

If you need a good laugh, tune to CSPAN sometime and take a look. This was one of those days.

Rep. Pete Stark, D-CA, went over the deep end tying SCHIP to killing soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians. Everything was stopped to see if his remarks were out of order. The Chair ruled they were not. Of course, the Chair is a Democrat – what would one expect?

In a nutshell, here are the arguments that took a couple of hours:

“It covers the wealthy.”
“No, it does not.”
“Yes it does.”
“It gives benefits to illegal aliens.”
“No, it does not.”
“Yes it does.”
“It’s Hillary Care.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes it is.”

The democrats put this vote off for a few weeks so they could run some TV commercials in Republican districts and gain some political points. The props they used were children. So, the whole thing is not just “for the children” – there are campaigns to be won!

Ironically all the children I saw on the TV commercials were already enrolled in SCHIP. The President’s plan increased the program by $5 billion. The bill that passed the House and Senate increased the program by $35 billion.

Senator Max Baucus used some of his millions in campaign cash to run a commercial about SCHIP, although all three members of the Montana delegation support SCHIP. There’s nothing like a politician taking advantage of the situation.

The democratic U.S. House Candidate from Montana, Bill Kennedy, jumped on the bandwagon yesterday with an e-mail. The subject was, “Less than 24 hours to save SCHIP.” Kennedy says Congressman Denny Rehberg is running scared and that’s why he voted for SCHIP. Kennedy says that Rehberg should convince his Republican friends in the House to override the President’s veto. Of course no political e-mail or commercial would be complete without a plea for contributions.

Yep, it’s all for the children.

So, after all this posturing for a few weeks, the attempt to override the President’s Veto in the U.S. House of Representatives fell short of the 2/3 needed, 273-156.