Even by the rushed standards of these presidential jaunts, Bush's current outing to Latin America is a pell-mell affair. First it was Brazil, still smarting from De Gaulle's crack on the way back out to the airport, that "this is not a serious country." Bush got to say hello to President Lula and visit a slum. Then it was Uruguay on Saturday, with Colombia scheduled for Sunday, Guatemala on Monday, Mexico on Tuesday. It's this kind of rushed travel that prompted Bush Sr., in his presidential jaunt around Asia, to mix too many shots of sake with his Ambien and throw up into the lap of the Japanese prime minister, Kiichi Miyazawa.

            At the time of his eructation in January 1992, Bush Sr. was entering his last year in the White House, and like most incumbents, including now his son, had felt the urge to get out of Dodge and hit the road. Few Americans study the travel brochures with more zeal than two-term presidents who face impeachment (Nixon and Clinton) or popular loathing (Johnson and Bush Jr.) or unpleasant suggestions in the press that they are senile and should be removed from office under the terms of the 25th Amendment (Eisenhower and Reagan).

Next week the Governor will release his first budget and the Family Coverage Coalition and Voices for Ohio's Children and the Coalition for Affordable Healthcare in Ohio are all collaborating on finding stories of people who would benefit from raising parents' coverage to 100% of the federal poverty level, raising children's eligibility to 300% of the federal poverty level, parents and children already benefiting from Medicaid, people who are employed, but can't access coverage and the very poor, chronically ill who have been unable to enroll in Disability Medical Assistance, We need these stories as soon as possible! The media will be looking for persons in these categories when the budget is announced next week (3/15) and we will need to prepare people for legislative testimony which will start shortly after the budget is released.

Email Kathleen Gmeiner, kgmeiner@columbus.rr.com, or call her at (614) 443-2845 to receive more information and the submission form.

Black soldiers and the homeless targeted

There's only one thing worse than sacking an honest prosecutor. That's replacing an honest prosecutor with a criminal.

There was one big hoohah in Washington yesterday as House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers pulled down the pants on George Bush's firing of US Attorneys to expose a scheme to punish prosecutors who wouldn't bend to political pressure.

But the Committee missed a big one: Timothy Griffin, Karl Rove's assistant, the President's pick as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Griffin, according to BBC Television, was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election.

Key voters on Griffin's hit list: Black soldiers and homeless men and women. Nice guy, eh? Naughty or nice, however, is not the issue. Targeting voters where race is a factor is a felony crime under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs is prepared to follow in Dick Cheney's footsteps and shoot a friend in the face. I just sat through a hearing on Iran, and there is apparently universal bipartisan agreement in the committee that Iranians feel kindly toward Americans and welcome them as friends, and that Iranians should be brutally punished by the toughest economic sanctions possible. This simple truth went unstated: sanctions kill.

Who remembers this exchange on your television a decade back?

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it."

--60 Minutes (5/12/96)

When Attorney General Alberto Gonzales insists that his firing of several United States attorneys last December wasn't a political purge but merely a normal bureaucratic decision, many thousands of lawyers, judges, officers and officials surely wish to believe him. Anyone who has taken an oath to uphold the law and the Constitution in good faith -- indeed, anyone who cares about the rule of law -- can only contemplate the vandalism inflicted on our law-enforcement system by Gonzales and his deputies with foreboding.

            Unfortunately, the credibility of Gonzales -- which was never very great -- is diminishing further as the facts behind the controversial round of firings continue to emerge. While his excuses and explanations for those dismissals evaporate under scrutiny, what can be seen instead is a familiar pattern of partisan misconduct.