Did Bart Stupak sell his healthcare reform vote for airport grants in Michigan?

  Ever since we learned that Bart Stupak caved in on the healthcare reform bill based on a promise by Barack Obama that he would sign an executive order that prohibited the federal funding of abortion– an order that he did not sign today but promised to sign sometime in the future, as if that really can be believed, I won’t be holding my breath– I thought that there must be more to the story than that. I found it hard to believe that someone who was as pro-life as we were led to believe that Bart Stupak was would simply abandon his principles based solely on a promise without getting actual language inserted into either the Senate bill or the “fix it” bill that has been sent to the Senate for a vote. There had to be some other “perk” given to Bart Stupak in order to buy off his healthcare reform bill. And today we may have learned what is was that Bart Stupak won that persuaded him to abandon his stated principles.

  It is being reported that just days before the healthcare reform vote Bark Stupak’s district was awarded three airport grants totalling over $700,000. Naturally, this has led to speculation that Bart Stupak’s healthcare reform vote was bought of by the administration for these grants.

  The timing certainly seems suspect enough. Did Bart Stupak vote yes on the healthcare reform vote because he was able to secure airport grants for his district? Or was this simply an extraordinary coincidence? I find it too hard to believe that these two events are not related. Bart Stupak appears to have put pork ahead of his stated position of protecting the unborn, and I find this to be reprehensible if indeed this is the case.

  Why else would Bart Stupak cave in to the healthcare reform bill based on the promise of an executive order that could be rescinded at any time? It seems obvious to me that Bart Stupak is a fraud and that he sold his vote for these grants. He realized that without his vote or the vote of his supposedly pro-life Blue Dog coalition, the healthcare reform bill would not pass and he held out for the best offer that he could get. That offer turned out to be grants for airports in his district and with that offer Bart Stupak sold out the last remaining chance to stop the healthcare reform bill from becoming law. Bart Stupak, I hope that you are proud of yourself, you put the lives of the unborn that you were supposed to be defending behind a backroom deal that delivered more money to your district. We now know where your true loyalties lie.

  To paraphrase a Boston talk radio host, Howie Carr, it is time to put Blue Dogs on the endangered species list because they are few and far between.