Congress: `Minimum Wage, Maximum Gall’

For just once, I hope Dick Morris is right. The toe-sucking political guru turned columnist who worked both sides of the aisle until the Clintons fired him and he became a shrill one-note anti-Hillary scold, believes House Republicans weren’t half as smart as they thought they were with their “gotcha” legislation combining a minimum wage raise with a cut in estate taxes.

House Republicans (once again playing Roadrunner to the Democrats’ Wile E. Coyote) were so gleeful over their hypocrisy they didn’t bother staying around for Senate action. They adjourned for the summer, going home with that warm feeling they get after concocting another legislative land mine to blow up in Democratic faces.

Democrats, of course, were furious, drawing this taunt from Rep. Zack Wamp: “You’re just angry because we outfoxed you!” (And people call this a “do-nothing” Congress).

Had it been gift-wrapped and wearing Kevlar, Senate Republicans could not have been more pleased at the cleverly packaged bill the House presented them. There were high-fives all around. The Hill featured a front-page photo of Majority Leader Bill Frist and Majority Whip Mitch McConnell braying for the camera, hailing a stratagem that would put Democrats in bind with voters. Frist praised the measure as a “family prosperity act” (which would be true if the family is Frist).

“There’s no risk. It’s all reward” crowed McConnell, noting that even if the bill failed they’ed be able to blame Democrats for standing in the way of a minimum wage increase.

Surprisingly, in that same issue of The Hill their columnist Dick Morris had this to say: “What are they thinking in the House? A Democratic campaign strategist couldn’t dream up a better linkage than that between the minimum wage and the estate tax reduction…Many issues are too complex for the average voter, but the priority we should accord those making $5 an hour over those who stand to inherit $5 million is so clear that it can fit on a bumper sticker.”

Morris nailed it. A transparent case of political blackmail.

For the country, all of this should be too much to bear. But for beleaguered Democrats, it could be a pivotal turning point. Republicans had finally approved their long advocated minimum wage raise, but tied it to a tax cut for multi-millionaires and dared them to reject it. They did.

Does this mean Democrats are finally growing immune to Republican extortion tactics, such as challenging their patriotism when they question the Iraq war?

Every other issue in the midterm and `08 Presidential elections pales beside this one, and yet Democrats have never managed a coherent message of dissent. The preemptive War in Iraq will go down in history as our biggest foreign policy blunder ever. How can Democrats and voters not hold accountable a President who misled us into a disastrous war that has cost thousands of lives and drains our treasury of more than $1 billion every day?

Yet all Republicans need do is cry ‘cut and run’ and Congressional Democrats do just that, cut and run.

This is why the fuss over Joe Lieberman is so important. Joe claims he’s always been a good Democrat, why does the party want to throw him overboard because he disagrees with them on one issue—the war? But Joe saying I’m with the party on everything but the war is like telling a labor leader I’m with you on everything but Right to Work.

Duh.