[« And speaking of Juan Cole....] [Interesting juxtapositions department: »]
08/13/2004: Passing observations....
Melanie Matson at Just a Bump on the Beltway made an interesting comment regarding the politicization of unemployment insurance. Noting that an anti-Kerry attack ad criticizes the senator for missing a vote on extension of unemployment insurance which failed by one vote:
One of the radio ads addresses Kerry's failure to vote on a bill to extend unemployment benefits for 13 weeks: "It needed 60 votes to pass. Ninety-nine out of 100 senators voted -- Kerry did not! It lost by one vote! Maybe Kerry thought the more of us who are unemployed and hurting, the more likely we would vote Democrat."Melanie notes:
What Edsall fails to tell you is that Bush opposed the UI extension. Had he supported it, it would have passed. Period.Meanwhile, in the "duh!" department.... Remember back when San Francisco was issuing all of those same sex marriage licenses, and gay couples were flocking to SF to get married? Well, the California Supreme Court got around to deciding on the issue. Fellow Rocky Top Brigade member blog LeanLeft was the first site to inform me of the inevitable decision: California State Supreme Court Voids SF Gay Marriages The good news, at least, is that the California Supremes decided on the narrow issue of the legality of the actions of SF city officials in issuing the licenses, leaving for another day the issue of the constitutionality of the gay marriage ban in California for another day.
There is some interesting politics here. Bush had to begin building the story that the economy was turning around and that there are scads of new jobs back at the beginning of the year. If Congress was still taking up UI legislation in December, there was the possibility that they may have to revisit it nearer to the election. Bush basically sacrificed the unemployed on the altar of the upcoming election. Yes, we noticed.
Len on 08.13.04 @ 08:26 AM CST
