Congressional Democrats, unions, and other organizations lobbying for the passage of S-CHIP are bringing kids to Capitol Hill to hold President Bush‘s feet to the fire, the Baltimore Sun‘s David Nitkin reports:

Congressional Democrats last week tapped Graeme Frost, 12, of Baltimore, to record a radio address urging the president to accept a more expensive version of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

“Three years ago, my family was in a really bad car accident,” Graeme said in the address, recorded hours before he appeared at a Capitol Hill news conference to tout a $35 billion SCHIP expansion passed by Congress. “I was in a coma for a week and couldn’t eat or stand up or even talk at first,” he said, and his family’s medical [bills] were covered by the joint-federal state program which expired yesterday but has been temporarily extended for seven weeks.

White House Press secretary Dana Perino implied Democrats are exploiting the kids, calling the campaign “unfortunate.” Hmm. I wonder who really has children’s best interests at heart in this debate? I guess the jury’s still out.

–Dana Goldstein

Dana Goldstein, a former associate editor and writer at the Prospect, comes from a family of public-school educators. She received the Spencer Fellowship in Education Journalism, a Schwarz Fellowship at the New America Foundation, and a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellowship at the Nation Institute. Her journalism is regularly featured in Slate, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Beast, and other publications, and she is a staff writer at the Marshall Project.