AUSTIN -- One problem I have with Arnold Schwarzenegger is that
he looks like a condom stuffed with walnuts. I realize that is superficial,
shallow and unbecoming to a semi-serious-minded liberal like myself, but
there it is. The other is that he doesn't know what he's talking about when
it comes to public policy.
And therein lies our thesis for the day: Politics as showbiz
versus what actually happens to real people's lives as a result of stupid
public policies. When 200,000 poor children get knocked off a federal health
insurance program because a state decides it can't afford the one-fifth
co-pay, what happens? In fact, children rarely die, because when they are
finally horribly ill and burning up with fever, their parents take them to
an emergency room, where they receive excellent care at a very high cost to
the rest of us. In the meantime, their teeth aren't attended, and their
hearing and eyesight are never checked. As a result, many of them try to
function in school with tooth pain or without being able to see or hear
clearly. Those little kids aren't celebrities, but they're just as real as
