Pig
mistake

Though it’s highly likely the swine flu will fizzle rather than become the herd-culling pandemic we’ve been promised before with SARS and the Avian Flu, there’s no reason we can’t use it as an opportunity to trash Republicans. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services finds itself short of resources, in no small part due to a Republican stymie of Democrat intentions to include $900-million of funding for pandemic preparedness in this past February’s stimulus bill.

Lumping it in with obesity control and smoking cessation programs, Karl Rove, himself suspiciously porcine, suggested an estimated total of $1.3-billion earmarked for the Centre for Disease Control and pandemic flu preparations in Obama’s emergency stimulus package was fool-headed Democratic money wasting. Senate Republicans ultimately forced Obama to drop the spending from the bill.

Aside from the obvious health benefits, Dems also tried to argue that a pandemic could further damage the already frail U.S. economy. Reps called bullshit on that too, and were no doubt ready to cast blame elsewhere when markets tumbled on news of the swine flu’s growing casualty rate

by SCOTT SAXON