Cynthia Tucker poses a question:

Just four years ago, President Bush and the Republican Congress joined with Democrats to champion a program giving prescription drug coverage to senior citizens. It was poorly conceived and mega-expensive, an added entitlement for a group of Americans who already had good medical care. But Bush and Congress insisted that seniors deserved it.
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Now, however, the president and many of his GOP colleagues adamantly oppose extending just a fraction of that good medical care to children. What sort of country lavishes health care on its old but withholds it from its young? Why do so many conservatives believe old folks are "deserving" but children are deadbeats?

And the answer is, kids don't vote, senior do, and they vote Republican. It's the same rationale that Bush tried to use in the Social Security debate, assuring seniors that their benefits wouldn't be cut.

But as usual, their thinking on this is pretty limited. They don't think that parents and grandparents of kids might object to these slights, just like they didn't think that taking out Saddam Hussein might create problems in Iraq.

The Bush team is only thinking one step ahead, on how to win that day's political battle. And it keeps burning his butt.