May 2009

The nation's capital is still recovering from this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner, which was no less raucous than in previous years, leaving White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to explain the White House's position on the finer points of comedy. 

The administration is also taking to the airwaves on healthcare, today, with a major policy announcement by the President. Backed by a coalition of vested interests who previously opposed reform, President Obama indicated that the health care industry and Congress have compatible incentives to cut costs, preserve consumer choice and extend coverage to the uninsured.

Also, the White House is reportedly on the verge of declassifying 2004 CIA memos that demonstrate torture to be ineffective. Anonymous congressional staffers have called these documents the "holy grail" in the persistent debate about what to do with those who tortured in America's name.

IN the HOUSE

Our Texas Governor recently made an outrageously incorrect statement: "When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that." Texas schoolchildren could tell you that no such deal was made; the real deal permitted Texas to self-divide into as many as five states. (The contemplated effect would have been that four new slave states were created if the northern territories turned free.)

Why have we heard this line from our Governor, last elected with a 39 percent plurality? Why would he expose himself to ridicule from all but the most extreme in a state where only 41 percent of recently Gallup-surveyed voters are willing to self-identify as members of his party? The reason is the most extreme slice of Texas will determine whether Perry wins his party's nomination for Governor next March in a hotly contested primary. He must get through the primary in order to stand a chance in a general election in what is now a "majority-minority" state. He must somehow rouse his dwindling base, and has apparently determined that inflammatory, unpatriotic language will suffice.