Strange Outrage

Submitted by Bill Scher on October 18, 2007 - 5:52pm.

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, she said, "I give the guy the benefit of the doubt."

But when our own Roger Hickey said, "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."

Million of kids without health insurance? No outrage there.

Lopez's fellow National Review editors 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.

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, but are willing to pay more in taxes to achieve it.

Even larger numbers than that support expanding SCHIP 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."