CHIP On Their Shoulder

"For now," says the New York Times, "the insurance vote stands as the latest example of how Mr. Bush can still get his way on Capitol Hill. Through artful use of veto threats and his veto pen, Mr. Bush has fended off attempts to force a change of course in Iraq -- a feat Democrats would never have imagined when they pushed Republicans out of power a year ago. He has twisted Democrats into knots over domestic surveillance, and forced them to rethink a resolution condemning as genocide a century-old massacre of Armenians."

National Review backs the president:

"We're glad the House voted to sustain Bush's veto of the bill to expand S-CHIP, the children's health-insurance program. We think Bush is right on policy grounds, and that Republicans are in a better political position than a lot of people think.

"The problem with the bill is not, primarily, that it represents 'middle-class welfare.' . . . Its design guarantees that it will transfer money from poor states to rich ones, and from poor people to middle-class ones . . .

"We understand why S-CHIP makes Republicans nervous. Nobody wants to be labeled as hostile to children. But over the next year the issue will inevitably take a back seat to the parties' approaches toward health care in general."

And in a related development: "Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that immigrants living in the U.S. illegally would not be covered by her proposed universal health care plan."

Does Sam Brownback dropping out today mean much? Let's defer to David Yepsen at the Des Moines Register:

"The likely beneficiary of his departure in Iowa will be Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

"Prior to the August straw poll, the two were fighting a pitched battle for the support of Iowa's most activist social conservatives. Their test was the Ames straw poll and Huckabee came up the winner.

"Brownback appeared to be better organized and was campaigning more heavily in the state, but Huckabee trumped him by attracting new Republicans who support replacing the income tax with a national sales tax."

The New Republic's Noam Scheiber was already high on Huck, especially after a Rasmussen poll in Iowa showed Romney with 25 percent, Thompson with 19, Huckabee with 18 and Rudy with 13.

"'ve said it before and I'll say it again: Mike Huckabee could easily take second place in the caucuses. That's my prediction in any case . . .