(hat tip to Cab Drollery)

So the entire 109th Congress advised America re: Bush's actions, BOHICA. But in the 110th, two Senators when confronted with Bush's order to the states not to let S-CHIP coverage "crowd out" private insurers -- and neither of the two is now a candidate for President, please note, though one is from each party -- wondered, "Can he really do that?"

Being Senators, they went looking for an answer -- except instead of a junket to China they chose an inquiry to the Government Accounting Office. On Friday the GAO issued its answer.

Bush can't do that. He's breaking the law.

Of course, this doesn't make the mainstream news.

The Senators involved are Olympia Snowe and John D. Rockefeller IV.

At issue is a letter Bush sent to all the states:
At issue is the future of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, financed jointly by the federal government and the states. Congress last year twice passed bills to expand the popular program, and Mr. Bush vetoed both.

State officials of both parties say the policy, set forth in a letter to state health officials on Aug. 17, has stymied their efforts to cover more children at a time when the number of uninsured is rising and more families are experiencing economic hardship.

In a formal legal opinion Friday, the accountability office said the new policy “amounts to a marked departure” from a longstanding, settled interpretation of federal law. It is therefore a rule and, under a 1996 law, must be submitted to Congress for review before it can take effect, the opinion said.

But Jeff Nelligan, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said, “G.A.O.’s opinion does not change our conclusion that the Aug. 17 letter is still in effect.”

Well of course an administration spoke wouldn't consider the GAO opinion binding. These people don't recognize the authority of the US Code or the United States Constitution.

But the Senators know, now, that what happened last August 17 isn't just a little hinky. If the entire Congress doesn't get together and either override this veto, which they might collectively possess the intestinal fortitude to achieve, or else start impeachment proceedings, which they'll never in a million years try against a sitting Republican, it isn't just the White House and the Village we have to think about cleansing and renewing.

The administration told states they must comply with the directive by August of this year or else they face “corrective action.” Compliance could mean cutting back programs.

The Justice Department contends that the letter is “merely a general statement of policy with nonbinding effect,” But Gary L. Kepplinger, general counsel of the accountability office, said administration officials had treated it as “a binding rule.”

Ever since I was an Air Force pickle-suited newbie 30 years ago I've known that when politics gets in the way of operational effectiveness, the place to go is the IG's office. The GAO serves, albeit obliquely, as the IG for the entire federal government.

If we really care about kids in this country, and about health care, why are we still arguing over such nondescript trivia as whether one Presidential candidate's boilermaker drinking outweighs another's stealth obscene gestures? Are we, really, that juvenile as a nation?