Meanwhile, high above 43rd Street, reality takes a backseat to righteousness

This past election day, Oregon voters knocked down a referendum virtually identical to the proposed federal Schip program. This sent the New York Times into their usual apoplexy of moral indignation. You see, those dumb voters were duped by the tobacco industry:

The purveyors of Marlboro and Camel cigarettes did not win by disputing the urgent health care needs the initiative was meant to address, or the benefits higher cigarette taxes would bring by deterring smoking. They sought to hide behind a benign-sounding front group called Oregonians Against the Blank Check and proceeded to barrage voters with unscrupulous TV ads and mailings. Among other things, they stoked doubts that the funds raised would actually be used for children's health care, and they manufactured an overblown controversy over amending Oregon's Constitution.

Heavens, where did the death-stick merchants get that idea?

Billions of dollars from the nation's landmark tobacco settlement are being put to use across the country, but only about 5 percent is going to smoking prevention - about a quarter of what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends, a report released Saturday shows.

"It's moral treason to me," Mississippi Attorney General Michael Moore said in Saturday's The New York Times. "We got all this money, then legislatures and governors who were not even in this fight act like the money fell out of heaven and spend it on the political whim of the day."

I won't even comment on the irony that the Mississippi AG is named Michael Moore.

More - From the Corner: "The New York Times calls tobacco companies "shameless" for not lying down and allowing themselves to be looted by the state of Oregon."