Dear Dairy:

The Democrats are making a lot of political hay over my veto of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, trying to make it out like I don’t care about poor kids. Whether or not that’s true, they’re making it sound pretty despicable.

They have trotted out a lot of poor kids whose lives would have been devastated without the program to tell their stories. It’s pretty unfair stuff. I decided we should go on the PR offensive too and we got testimony from some kids about how much better off they were that they didn’t get adequate medical care when they needed it. I thought them being seriously debilitated and all would win us a lot of sympathy, but the little ingrates couldn’t get through their stories without crying so hard about how they miss their limbs or their folks or whatever that no one could understand what the hell they were saying.

This is a situation that calls for some flexibility, some diplomacy, and some political maneuvering; skills with which I have been richly endowed by my Creator. I have a plan that will provide the opportunity to take millions off of their dependence on the program, which is in the end what everyone really should want. To resolve the standoff, I will be proposing that we lower the enlistment minimums for the armed services to eight years of age, to afford them, as fighting boys and girls in Iraq, the same quality health care more and more members of the armed services enjoy every day.

Statesmanlike as Hell,
GWB