So it turns out that the prescription drug plan is hated by

* Rush Limbaugh,

* the Heritage Foundation, and

* the libertarians at Capitalism Magazine.

And yet it looks as if Bush will sign whatever prescription drug bill gets through Congress.

I'm a bit puzzled by this. I've never known Bush to offend his base. I guess he and Rove think they'll win a lot of seniors' votes while possibly losing a handful of votes to, perhaps, the Libertarian Party in '04.

And I half-suspet that the ex-drunk has become a bit excited at the realization that he's running up the deficit in the utterly heedless way he used to run up bar tabs. I really do think he's drunk on deficit spending -- he understands the far-right theory that damn-the-torpedoes deficit spending is a surefire way to bankrupt the federal treasury, after which huge cuts in social programs will be all but inevitable, and he's figured out that running up deficits is fun. So who knows? Maybe we'll (temporarily) get a few more social programs out of him -- even as he keeps the tax cuts coming.

But it's all going to be pretty awful when the bill comes due.