Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a Bill that would make it a separate federal crime to harm a pregnant woman's fetus. The mother and stepfather of Laci Peterson were with Bush at the signing ceremony. Peterson's husband has been charged with his wife's murder and that of their unborn child, who was to be named Conner. “All who knew Laci Peterson have mourned two deaths,'' Bush said, referring to the act as ``Laci and Conner's law.''

What a touching moment when the President shows his concern for the death of a woman and her fetus by signing into law a special Bill. How reassuring to realize that our President feels strongly about these deaths and one can only imagine how he must obsess about the deaths of the hundreds of our soldiers in Iraq.

Surely it’s only a matter of time before he calls for another Bill, this time addressing those who are responsible for the loss of life in an unnecessary war. Or maybe not. The conservative right seems to worry more about fetuses than full grown humans. Must be a religious thing that emerges every four years.

Still, a man who feels so deeply about unborn children must also want to do something for the many existing children who have had the misfortune to be born to illegal immigrants and who may be awaiting deportation.

In NYC, once a month, the fate of various children is decided in court. One day there was a 17 year old Haitian girl who escaped from her father’s killers, and another day there was a disabled 5 year old boy who didn’t have a visa which would allow him to remain with his parents. Immigration is trying to deport these children because since Sept. 11 everything the United States does is aimed at national security.

We’re talking about as many as 5000 children a year but despite the efforts of welfare lawyers to keep minors safe, since they’re not American children, the laws do not apply. One Jewish judge, whose mother saved her family from the Nazis during the holocaust with citizenship papers from Honduras, argued out of her compassion and prevented the 17 year old from being returned to Haiti.

Will our President address these cases by passing another bill or is this one of those instances where only fetuses need apply? After all, the greater concern seems to be with the preservation of human life provided it is still in vitro. Still, Bush has said no child shall be left behind, but he never mentioned the eight ball, did he?

To be fair, the President has shown great concern for seniors in this country. Doesn’t his new Medicare law give HMOs $46 billion under the new prescription drug law? Of course this money is being given to the HMO’s to unravel Medicare but I’m sure that once the President realizes this, he will make sure another bill gets signed, one that doesn’t cost significantly more than promised and one that actually helps seniors with the cost of their medications.

A man who so frequently invokes God’s name must have deep wells of compassion and must be biding his time before he laces into the pharmaceutical companies and smites them with the taxes he saves for the all mighty.

Our President wants a constitutional amendment to prevent gay marriage. After all, he believes strongly in the sacrament of marriage, even if it has a fifty percent chance of ending up in divorce. What will happen to family values if we don’t closely monitor what goes on behind closed doors? And isn’t that what marriage is all about? Love, commitment, children – those are all peripherals and only liberals consider them of importance. The real people – the ones who are deeply religious like the witch hunters of old – they know how we must rout the devil in all of us to keep our children pure and as bigoted as ourselves. Don’t look for a bill anytime soon unless substantially more political offspring come out of the closet.

To the 35 million working poor in this country, I say don’t despair. Right now we are engaged in nation building – unfortunately the nation is Iraq, not ours, and since we have a limited number of billions we can spend, our poor will have to remain so unless they can come up with some natural resource – oil would be good- that catches the attention of the government.

It doesn’t in any way have to be tied in with terrorism - in fact, if you mention the terror word to George Bush he gets very tense – Rumor has it that he may join the ranks of the unemployed in the coming year and that has him absolutely terrified.