Headline writer Matt Drudge linked to a post by CNSNews video producer Eric Scheiner today that basically equates the folks behind Lily the Sesame Street Muppet with ye old Politburo.

Drudge’s headline: SESAME STREET Muppet Touts Entitlements: ‘I Get A Free Breakfast and Lunch’…

Scheiner’s take: “Sesame Street Muppet Pitches Government Dependence: Free Food at School.”

Now that you know the specific evil Sesame Workshop is apparently sanctioning, here’s a bit from Scheiner’s post:

(CNSNews.com) – A “food insecure” Muppet is helping to promote a national “Food for Thought” campaign that teaches poor families to seek out nutritious food and to eat on the taxpayers’ tab.

At the National Press Club on Thursday, Lily the Muppet – who worries about her family not having enough money to feed her properly — pitched free food at school:

“Sometimes we can’t always afford to buy all the food that we need,” Lily said. “I mean, but we’ve been finding lots of ways that we can get help…Yeah, for example, at school I get a free breakfast and a lunch…part of the meal plan.”

Rather than stave off starvation on the public dole, perhaps Drudge and Scheiner are suggesting that the nation’s chronically poor children, many of whom are being raised in food deserts, might sustain themselves on ideology.

Lily’s message is being circulated through schools, hospitals and food assistance programs as part of Sesame Street’s “Food for Thought” multi-media campaign, which includes DVDs and a booklet listing “services that can assist your family” as well as “referrals to social service agencies.”

Organizers say they have produced a million of the kits.

Here’s to a million more.  And yes, Matt Drudge, basic nutrition is an entitlement, and making it available to those who can’t yet provide it for themselves is the obligation of any society that styles itself as free and full of opportunity.

As for CNSNews: it’s owned by L. Brent Bozell III‘s Media Research Center, which says it aims to “prove — through sound scientific research — that liberal bias in the media does exist and undermines traditional American values” and to “neutralize [that bias’s] impact on the American political scene”.

How the hell is feeding poor kids a liberal or conservative issue?  Is it really more conservative or “traditional” to expect the market to take care of the poor?  And even if it is, what are we supposed to do while we wait for all of these layers of regulation and “entitlements” to be peeled back so we can freely suckle Market Mother Wolf?  If the private sector has to wait for lower taxes and fewer regulations before it solves the hunger problem in America, to hell with the private sector on this particular issue.

What’s so offensive to a certain radical conservative strain about things like the Food for Thought Campaign?  Is it simply hating to be reminded that poor kids actually exist, that they really do go hungry?  Is it really only politics?  Or, at the end of the day, is it really about hating those kids and their families because of who they are and where they live, and how easy it is to blame them for their misfortune, a reality so inconvenient to certain sacral political beliefs?