Hillary Clinton To Reposition Her Image At Great Taxpayer Expense?

I hadn't been paying much attention to Hillary Clinton's recent campaign to rein in explicit sexual content in explicitly violent video games. I figured it was true what they say -- she's trying to reposition herself as a centrist in preparation for a Presidential bid. I figured it was all talk. And talk, being cheap, doesn't cost us anything. But then I saw this article that has been making its way around the blogosphere the last few days:

Steven Johnson, Los Angeles Times"Hillary vs. the Xbox: Game over"
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I'm writing to commend you for calling for a $90-million study on the effects of video games on children, and in particular the courageous stand you have taken in recent weeks against the notorious "Grand Theft Auto" series.

I'm not sure I agree with Steven Johnson's glib defense of "thrill seeking" games. But I'm sickened that Senator Clinton, teamed with Rick Santorum, Sam Brownback, and Joe Lieberman, would consider blowing 90 million of our tax dollars on this investigation.

Ninety-million dollars! To put that much money in perspective, it is enough to fund the "Healthy Kids" program I wrote about the other day for 15 years. It's three times the annual budget of the Mountain View-Los Altos school district. It's money that could be used (here's an idea) to pay down the huge national debt that all those video game playing kids will inherit. Or returned to taxpayers, who could surely think of something more useful (or more fun -- video games?!) to spend it on.

A couple of parting shots: First, who spends $90 million on a study without heavy expectations of how they would like the results of that study to turn out? And, second, what good does it do to regulate campaign expenses when Senators can spend gobs of public money to build their political images?