A writer emails:
I have to thank you for hammering the last days the issue of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her support for the Balart Brothers.
This issue matters more than anyway would think. And now it is touching home.
I was laid off last september, and my health insurance will run out by mid year. My three-year old son has epilepsy (primary generalized seizures) and it costs a lot of money to keep up with the doctors, tests and medicines. Last year the bills (that thank God I did not have to pay) where almost $ 40,000. Now the problem is that I do not qualify for SCHIP, and I am pretty sure that no insurance will take me because of my son illness. What am I going to do? Here is where Debbie Wasserman S. come into picture. Please someone explain to me why Debbie is supporting Mario Diaz Balart who voted against SCHIP after receiving money from the tobacco companies. WHY? It seems that is more important to Debbie the friendship and alliances than a core progressive issue. And it is beyond me to understand why a fine popular progressive like Joe Garcia doesn't get her full support.
Indeed, let's see what Mario Diaz-Balart had to say about SCHIP, which would've been expanded with a tax increase on tobacco products:
In a flame-fanning tirade on Spanish-language radio last week, Díaz-Balart called the tax hike [to pay for SCHIP] an "attack on the Cuban-American community." He added: "It would hurt an industry specifically in Miami-Dade, in South Florida, an industry that is almost entirely Hispanic: those who make cigars by hand, which is a cultural tradition. That industry will not survive."
This stuff matters. It's not a game. People's lives are impacted by these decisions.
Wasserman Schultz is supposed to head the DCCC program to turn Red districts Blue -- a noble cause given what is at stake these elections. But she has tarnished that cause by letting her personal "friendship" with Republicans standing in the way of progress and the betterment of lives get in the way of her ability to properly do her job.
In an interview with a blogger, she pleaded for mercy.
"I have read some of the bloggers' comments," she told me, imploring me to "please help get them off my back," as she seemed to be frustrated by the coverage she's received lately in the blogosphere.
Frustrated? On so many fronts, the Republicans are standing in the way of progress, on Iraq, SCHIP, health care, fiscal responsibility, corruption, civil liberties, and so on. Those three south Florida Republicans are part of that problem. And she's going to be "frustrated" that people demand she do her job?
Read that email I received again. The emailer can't get health insurance because of his sick child, and can only afford his child's care because of SCHIP. Meanwhile, his congressman is doing what he can do to sabotage that program. And Wasserman Schultz protects him. That's what frustration looks like.
She took on her job at the DCCC knowing it's a partisan position that entails targeting the districts of fellow colleagues. If she can't do that job, that's fine. Most of us won't hold that against her.
But she then needs to resign her position. She has no business holding that title if she cannot faithfully discharge its duties.
