Governor Charlie Crist made the rounds of the cable networks this morning, and part of that offensive included contrasting the health care reform plans being promulgated by President Obama with his own modest endeavor here in Florida.

That's despite the fact that (as the Miami Herald reported in August), the governor's plan, called Cover Florida, had attracted only 3,757 people to the program, in a state with over 4 million uninsured.

Crist's response when asked about that on CNN?  "It's over 4,000 now."

CNN's John Roberts asked Crist how he could criticize big-government programs while boasting about  the growth of the state's health care program for children, Florida Kid Care, which expanded to cover tens of thousands more kids this year.

"That's for children," the Guv responded.  Roberts rightly shot back, "What's the difference?" Crist repeated, "It's for children."

However, it was a kinder, gentler, love-in type of interview over at Fox News' Fox & Friends program. (Download the Mitch Perry Report below.)

Host Steve Doocy cheerfully advised (rather than questioned Crist) that the feds in Washington could do well to take up what Crist has accomplished so far in the Sunshine State.

Crist's denunciation of Barack Obama last Friday in Michigan led off the discussion on CNN, and was also discussed on MSNBC's Morning Joe program.  In both cases, the governor riffed on his comparison of Obama with Jimmy Carter, explaining that last year, like the post-Watergate election of 1976, the American public was in the mood for change, which Crist said Obama tapped into.

But Crist, echoing the complaint heard at every Tea Party in the country this year, said the change is "too fast, too furious, too soon."

On both CNN and MSNBC he gamely defended his embrace of Obama last February when they appeared together in Lee County shortly before Congress approved the $787 billion stimulus plan.  Repeating what Vice President Joe Biden said in Florida last month, Crist said the stimulus had saved 26,000 teaching jobs in Florida.

But on MSNBC (which usually leans to the liberal side, though that's not the dominant ideology on Morning Joe hosted by former Florida conservative Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough, who was out today), Crist emphasized his civility, saying that he respected the office of the Presidency.

A few weeks ago, Scarborough was outraged at Crist's hand-picked choice to lead the Florida Republican Party, Jim Greer, after the Chairman blasted the announcement that President Obama would be addressing the nation's schoolchildren.  Greer's infamous remark that Obama could be indoctrinating the kids with socialism was (at the time) said by many analysts to be a new low in GOP fear-mongering.

At that time, Scarborough was calling on the 'adults in the GOP,  such as Mitt Romney or Charlie Crist, to come out and denounce Greer's comments.  Of course, that was a bit silly of Scarborough, who frequently boasts about how much he still knows and follows Florida politics, to say Crist would come out and rip on Greer, considering that many call him the governor's doppelganger.

Speaking of Fox News and Florida Republican politics, last week the St. Pete Times speculated that Hillsborough County Assistant State Attorney Pam Bondi could be interested in running for the GOP nomination for Attorney General next year.

Bondi appeared on Fox News' O'Reilly Factor for a brief segment last night on the merits of last weekend's arrest of film director Roman Polanski in Switzerland for a 31-year-old statutory rape charge in California.

Looking to pick up the law-and-order vote if she decides to run for office, Bondi said she'd "lock him up as long as I could" during her discussion with O'Reilly.

The Tallahassee Democrat is reporting that Bud Chiles, the son of former Democratic Governor Lawton Chiles, is contemplating a run for Chief Financial Officer next year.

I interviewed Chiles earlier this year when he was in Tampa as part of his worst- to-first journey across the state, where he is speaking out passionately about funding education and child welfare programs.  From my encounter, I'd say the man is very committed.  I'm not sure CFO is a natural for him, but politics does seem to be in the bloodline.

And we couldn't get too far without discussing health care.  The public option will be debated in the Senate Finance Committee today in Washington.  Most reporting on this concludes that there will not be such a public option coming out of this committee, or the Senate, but could very well show up in a House bill.  Then there will be a conference between the two bills, if they are passed, and the public option could come back in some form.  So for those who would despair of any health care bill that doesn't contain a government component, don't worry if the Finance Committee rejects that today.

And last but not least, a correction.  On the podcast yesterday, I erroneously attributed a famous quote about defining pornography to former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.  I meant to say former Supreme Court Justice Stewart Potter.