Washington's War on Potatoes appears to be wrapping up, and... let's see here... potatoes are winning! White potatoes, those excessively salted and fried and embacon'd starch rocks that are now limited to two weekly cafeteria servings under new USDA regulations for federally subsidized school lunches, will soon be freed, as the Senate voted yesterday to "block the USDA from putting any limits on serving potatoes or other vegetables in school lunches."

Senators Susan Collins and Mark Udall, whose states happen to include large potato-growing corporations, introduced the amendment to scrap these do-gooder Obama rules and let the country's fat kids eat all the salty tater tots and baked potatoes with "fixins from the fixins bar" all the time, just like they used to:

"The proposed rule would prevent schools from serving an ear of fresh corn one day and a baked potato another day of the same week, an utterly absurd result," Ms. Collins said. Mr. Udall said, "Anything can be fried or drowned in any number of fats available to us as consumers." The problem, he said, is not with the potato, but with how it is sometimes prepared.

Well, there goes another attempt to diversify federal food subsidies away from cheap starches covered in salt, but fair enough. The USDA under this amendment would "still have flexibility to regulate the preparation of the potatoes when it issues the final version of the school lunch rule," so maybe Senator Udall should share those healthy recipes of his.

[Image via AP]