How I Spent My August Recess

Congressional conservatives are spending their August recess in an interesting way: telling their constituents about their hard work ... to keep health insurance away from kids.

Well, they're not quite that honest. Following the lead of the HHS Hacks, they're spreading misinformation about House and Senate legislation around their home states.

But bloggers are on the case.

Ditch Mitch truth-squads Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's dishonestly named op-ed "Kids First."

Blue Jersey does the same for Rep. Scott Garrett's propaganda, published in New Jersey's The Record and the conservative site Town Hall.

Texas' Blue 19th finds Rep. Randy Neugebauer is effectively telling constituents he "voted for SCHIP before he voted against it." (via Thurman Hart's SCHIP roundup at DailyKos)

The Washington conservative machine is flailing about trying to stoke opposition to expanding SCHIP [State Children's Health Insurance Program].

Firedoglake rips conservatives for falsely claiming that the legislation would allow illegal immigrants to join the program, while Right Wing Watch finds anti-abortion groups are concocting claims that the bill would lead to "taxpayer-funded abortions" and "involuntary euthanasia."

And on Sunday, all the Republican presidential candidates declared opposition to the congressional legislation for various reasons, from the classic "socialized medicine" nonsense to falsely claiming the legislation includes "cuts to the Medicare alternative" (debunked here).

Why are they flailing about, wildly spreading misinformation? Because as I've noted before, conservatives are in an incredibly weak political position by opposing children's health insurance.

Like with many issues, conservatives can't win on the merits. And they are further undermined by the number of Republicans that have already broken ranks.

In turn, the American Prospect's Paul Waldman sees a huge opportunity:

This is an opportunity ... to define conservatism itself. It's time ... to talk in explicit terms about the consequences of the conservative antigovernment philosophy and what it says about the people who advocate it.

Conservatives are the people who degrade government to the point that it cannot effectively maintain our roads and bridges. Conservatives are the people who turn over our defense budget to corrupt contractors who steal the money that ought to go to our troops. Conservatives are the people who won't let poor kids have health insurance.