Blagojevich appears on Air America Radio

Listening to the opening of the Al Franken Show on Air America Radio this morning, something caught my ear. Franken was announcing his guests for the show and said that Governor Blagojevich was going to be one of them. But Franken was stopped cold in trying to pronounce the Governor's name, and after several mangled attempts, was put straight by an assistant. Franken then quipped that in the original Slav, Blagojevich meant "Son of a Dull Person."

I was away from the radio during Blago's appearance this morning, but I'm listening to the re-broadcast of the show via the streaming live broadcast available at Air America's site.

Despite Blago putting the show on hold for a couple minutes before he finally came on, the interview went very well, with Franken citing many stats about the number of children who don't have access to health care, the effects of this lack of service, and the economic costs associated with the lack of preventive care and attention to health problems at their onset.

Blago did a great job, speaking rapidly and getting a lot of talking points across while not appearing overly scripted or pushy. It was a good back and forth with Franken, and after Blago's segment was over, Franken went on at length in support of the merits of universal health care for kids, saying he was "moved" by Blago's proposals.

This issue is doubtless going to be the flagship issue for Blago going into the election season. While he was effective in putting forth the need for and rationale for such a program, and effectively batted down Republican objections. But he noticeably said not a word about how the massive program would be funded, other than to say that it could be done. This is the initiative's Achilles heel.

While I've read a rather general and hazy explanation that the funds for this enormously costly initiative would somehow be found by making some of the current programs more efficient, it is far from convincing. The fact remains that while the selling of the program by conjuring the image of sick and injured children unable to get the care they need will be very effective, the effort would seem to be very vulnerable to any serious inquiry into just how it would be paid for.

But it must be driving the Republicans nuts, as it leaves them to be cast as the heartless grinches who oppose helping sick little poor children (though of course, this measure will cover even millionaires if their children are uninsurable due to pre-existing conditions, it will not be tough to cast the Repubs as heartless bastards, mainly because it's not that much of a stretch.)

This is going to be a big battlefield as the elections approach, and it will be very interesting to see how it plays out.