George Bush had a chance to do something about the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs by including a provision in his Medicare Plan D program that would have allowed the government to negotiate lower prices for drugs covered by the plan. Instead, the ability to negotiate lower prices was removed from the program and Medicare Plan D is now just one more in a long line of George Bush's "windfall" programs. This time the windfall goes to the drug companies and the insurance companies, not the people who need some relief from the cost of prescription drugs. Tonight he's going to propose expanding tax deductions for medical expenses (won't all the people who are faced with bankruptcy because of huge medical expenses be thrilled) and he's going to promote tax-deductible health savings accounts (HSA's). Gee, won't that be swell for all the young healthy people who can afford to put some of their income into these accounts (and get a tax break to boot) and won't that be swell for whoever gets the use of all the money that'll come pouring into these accounts! But wait a minute ... how is this going to help the 46 million people who can't afford health insurance? If they had any spare money to put into an HSA don't you think they'd be using this money to buy health insurance instead??? And how are bigger tax deductions and more money in HSA's going to lower the cost of health care? George Bush has all but ignored America's health care crisis during his entire 5 years in office. If, after all this time, bigger tax deductions and HSA's are all he has to offer I would hope the Democrats and the American people will collectively give George Bush the finger that he so richly deserves.

Gee, wouldn't a good reporter have "dug a little deeper" BEFORE the interview?

God help me, but I've become such a cynic in the last 5 years that I'm sitting here thinking that Bush is probably hoping for another terrorist attack on American soil ... military enlistment levels would undoubtedly go way up, just as they did after 9/11, and his commander-in-chiefdom would be bigger and better than ever. (And, of course, he'd place the blame for the attack squarely on the Democrats and all the people who keep leaking his dirty little secrets to the press.) In the meantime I'm just going to enjoy imagining how royally peeved King George must get every time another negative report that he undoubtedly would have suppressed manages to gets publicized.

I totally agree with Klaus' observations. What's more, the Democrats also need to keep reminding people that Bush has always been quick to declare that anyone who protests the war in Iraq is aiding the enemy and anyone who talks about the scope of these wiretaps is aiding the enemy. In short, anyone who disagrees with George Bush about just about anything is aiding the enemy ... who's to say that THAT wouldn't be ample justification for a warrantless wiretap, just as it was for Nixon. And don't forget to point out that FISA was enacted precisely because of Richard Nixon's self-proclaimed wartime powers, which included spying on Americans who were protesting the war in Viet Nam. Time and time again George Bush has betrayed the trust placed in him by the people who voted for him ... George Bush cannot be trusted with powers that were never intended for one man to have. This isn't a partisan issue - this isn't a national security issue - this is a trust issue.

Let's face it, George Bush's poll numbers haven't slipped all that much when the questions relate to national security but lately he doesn't poll well at all when the questions relate to trust and believability. As Klaus suggests, that's where the Democrats need to concentrate (and concentrate they must because Rove and Bush have come out swinging with their usual strategy of "the best defense is a good offense" ).