2008: over before it begins.

As Republicans in Congress find new ways to harass Democrats trying to end the Iraq war, they advance lemming-like over a voter cliff of disapproval. To make matters worse for their ever-shrinking base, they’re cheered on by their three leading candidates for President in 2008.

Congressional Republicans who survived the 2006 November elections were a chastened bunch. They said they had learned from the debacle. Asked what issues worked against them, most cited the Iraq war.

So here they are, looking more Wal-Mart than Hallmark in their fraying minority threads, ignoring the resounding message of the mid-terms as they continue to defend an unholy war. I can only ask: what are they thinking?

Going into 2004, President Bush and the GOP were riding high, though in retrospect it was pretty clear that disaster was looming.

I can tell you that retrospect is coming early this time. You don’t need polls or tea leaves to see that legislative roadblocks to bringing our troops home is a not a winning strategy either in Iraq or in the 2008 elections.

For too many years of the Bush disaster in Iraq both the media and Democrats were silent. Until Howard Dean spoke up, the Iraq war was the unmentioned 800-pound gorilla in the living room, chomping the drapes and trashing the furniture while the GOP-controlled Congress asked no questions, busily writing overdrawn checks to the Pentagon.

You may have forgotten but until Dean spoke the unmentionable, that people hated, despised this war, Joe Lieberman was leading all 2004 polls as the Democratic candidate for president. Lieberman has since become the Dick Morris of elected politicians, a poisonous presence in the Congress now joined at the hip with John McCain (his “straight-talk” express jack-knifed in the slow-burn lane) in lauding policies Bush.

But it isn’t just the war. On every policy issue that ordinary people care about, Republicans are on the wrong side.

Somehow, voter anger over global warming is still taking the GOP by surprise. As are GOP efforts to block stem cell research that could cure people with dreadful illnesses. Karl Rove is probably still crunching the numbers, but I’m sure he’ll find there are more voters incensed about the tax cuts for the very rich than pleased about it, and for Bush to insist the cuts be made permanent is insulting as well as economically absurd for the country. Most voters believe guns kill people and that abortion is a decision that should be made by a woman and her doctor, not the government. Most voters believe the minimum wage should be increased and that workers should be allowed to join unions. Most voters want universal health care and worry more about rising insurance premiums than they do the profitability of the $2 trillion health insurance industry that funds GOP campaigns.

The GOP posture in Congress can’t change because the President Bush can’t change. They continue to believe tax cuts are the solution to every problem and that government’s only purpose other than peeping in bedrooms for the religious right is to help friendly contractors get no-bid federal contracts. They will maintain that fealty to a discredited President and a hated war because, as House Minority Leader John Boehner confessed: “You can say our reservoir of new ideas is low.”

So ring it up. In 2008 a Democrat—any Democrat—will win the White House along with a Democratic-controlled Congress that includes a 60-plus veto-proof Senate.

Remember, you heard it here.

Bush: It Wasn’t My Fault

A frequent reader of Kamber’s Comments—a former Miami newsman now living in Panama—read my Bush impeachment blog and observed that George W. no doubt has reasonable explanations for everything that has gone so terribly wrong in Iraq. Here is “Panama Bob” taking on the thankless Tony Snow role of anticipating the inevitable George W. Bush autobiography, "Why It Wasn't My Fault: Who's Really to Blame".

1. Congress: "If those guys had just done their job I might not be in this mess. A GOP House and Senate--talk about your puppet governments..."

2. Saddam: "Why couldn't he tell me he was just bluffing about having weapons of mass destruction? That and a sincere apology for planning to assassinate my Dad could have defused the whole thing. Sure, Saddam was a tyrant but he'd already killed most everybody he intended to kill, and our no-fly zone protected the Kurds, plus really, who cares if the Iraqis have a democracy? Him being the natural enemy of Iran, we could have worked with him the way we did before, but no-o-o-o. Ever notice how some people are just too stubborn to admit their mistakes?"

3. The Iraqis: "Ingrates, hat's what I call them. We gave them a chance to be a semi-autonomous subsidiary of Halliburton and they muffed it. You say Sunnis and Shites are implacable enemies incapable of cooperating in our cherry-picked Iraqi government? Now you tell me. I mean, who knew?

4. Colin Powell & Pentagon: "Just try being commander in chief when every time you give an order someone's saying it can't be done. One says it's too little too late, the other says it's too much too soon. I say it's damn hard to find a good yes-man these days."

5. Press: "I lied? Weapons of mass destruction? Victory in sight? Bin Laden and Iraq? So what? Truth? You guys don't want the truth. You can't handle the truth. How can you blame me when all I did was say what you wanted to hear--remember shock and awe? Stay the course? Hey, you ate it up. Keep in mind, a Pulitzer Prize is nothing but what one person gets for reporting what all the rest overlooked."

6. Students: "Where were the protesters when they might have made a difference? I'll tell you where: frat parties, playing war games on PlayStations, that's where. Beer-guzzling undergraduates--I have nothing but contempt for their ilk.

7. Charles Rangel: "I get so tired of hearing about him. If he'd made a successful case for drafting senator's kids we'd could have been out of Iraq two years ago. But no--he was too busy crossing police tape lines and holding press conferences."

8. Donald Rumsfeld: "Oh, yes! I can hardly wait to read his memoirs about how he disagreed with me right from the start, how if I'd listened more to him, blah blah..."

9. Dick Cheney: "If any criminal proceedings come out of this, I'm warning everyone right up front I intend to cut a deal. I can name names. It's not me they should focus on. And they say the Mafia is a family..."

10. Karl Rove: "Talk about your Machiavelli's and Rasputin's. I thought it was just a joke when he came up with that campaign slogan, 'Who Would Jesus Vote For?' If it weren't for that, I could have been at my ranch in Crawford all this time, rooting for the Rangers."

11. Condoleezza Rice: "If there's an historical lesson to be learned from all this, it's never rely on anyone who graduated from college before age 13."

12. Mr. I'm-So-Smart Al Gore and Mr. Hoof-In-Mouth John Kerry. "Oh, those guys...Laura said alongside them, even she had to vote for me."

13. My Brother. "You know why he stole that close election in Florida for me? I'll tell you why. Because mother always loved me best, that's why. He was dying to make me look bad, give me chance to screw up. It was revenge, pure and simple."

14. The American Public: "Okay, final chapter, big finish. Here are your real culprits. Ask yourself this: Was I even remotely qualified to be president of the United States? No way, Jose. Didn't everybody who even so much as watched Saturday Night Live know that my bricks lacked mortar? Absolutely. So what happened? There's no I.Q. test for voters--dummies vote, dummies get elected. Those folks in the Red States tossed me in over my head, not once, but twice. Hey, bottom line, I'm the victim here..."

15. Epilogue. "Maybe you saw me reading off the tv prompter something about being responsible. I detest speechwriters, always putting words in my mouth, getting me in trouble--so don't even think about using that against me. As I see it, it's a lot like parsing what 'is' is. I understood it to mean responsibility in the Janet Reno sense of 'Look how admirable I am, standing here shouldering the blame for mistakes made by others.' If it comes to it, I can say in all honesty--and I think there are many who'll back me up on this--not only am I not responsible, I'm probably the least responsible president this nation has ever had. "

Let’s get organized.

Rep. Barney Frank had an interesting notion the other day for getting labor unions and corporate America to work together on legislative issues of mutual concern. And the two do have issues.

With Democrats now in control of the Congress, multinational corporations fear that union opposition will re-write trade pacts and sink their globalization gravy-boat.

A labor priority is passage of The Employee Free Choice Act that would make it easier for workers to unionize.

Frank suggests corporate America curb its hostility to the Employee Free Choice Act and in exchange labor will ease up on its proposed amendments to “free trade” agreements.

His compromise proposal comes at a timely moment for both business and labor. Business has prospered from NAFTA, CAFTA and all the other AFTAs, but trade agreements have been a disaster for workers. Demands to toughen our trade laws to protect workers were a big issue that helped elect a Democratic Congress in the November mid-term elections. Even Business Week ran a cover story on how our overseas factories “lie and cheat on labor standards.”

Meanwhile, a recent BLS announcement revealed more bad news for organized labor: the number of workers in unions had dropped to 15.4 million, just 12% of the workforce. That’s the lowest percentage since the government began keeping those records over two decades ago and explanation enough why unions so desperately need The Employee Free Choice Act. Surveys show that 60 million workers would join a union if they could. What stops them is employer resistance. Employer intimidation, harassment and retaliation have greeted every union organizing campaign since the early 1980s. After Ronald Reagan fired the striking aircraft controllers and brought in permanent replacements, the Congress named an airport after him. From that moment, the public has been led to believe that when employers beat up on workers it is a patriotic act.

Republican administrations from Reagan through the Bushes have all but destroyed the “right” of working men and women to organize. Union membership is the ticket to middle-class living standards, but at a time when the nation’s largest employer is ferociously anti-union, a middle-class that made our country the envy of the world is slowly disappearing. Bush stacked the NLRB with management appointees who see their role as debunkers, not protectors, of labor law, which helps explain why union membership in the U.S. has sunk to the lowest in the industrialized world. It is downright appalling as well as humiliating that on International Human Rights Day pleas are raised from Jakarta to Helsinki to end government and corporate abuse of workers in the U.S. of A.

China with its sweatshops last year shipped $280 billion worth of goods to the U.S. is closer to an Employee Free Choice Act than we are, though they have the same opposition our workers do: the American Chamber of Commerce and corporate biggies like Wal-Mart. When Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced a new labor law that would crack down on inhumane working conditions and significantly push up the wages of everyday workers, representatives of American and European business organizations warned that the new law would discourage their corporate members from making further investments in China.

Chinese government officials are concerned about the widening income gap and threats of social unrest, aware that the vast majority of Chinese citizens have gained little from the global economy. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Maybe Barney Frank should go to Beijing.

Embedded in the healthcare war.

Embedded in the healthcare war.

Health care, or the lack of it, will be the top domestic issue in the 2008 elections. To be taken seriously, every Presidential candidate – even Duncan Hunter --has staff devising some sort of a convoluted health plan. (Hunter’s will probably be financed by defense contractors). Most proposals are retreads of flawed legislation passed last year in Massachusetts. Former Republican Gov. Mitt Romney runs around the country telling folks he brought universal health care to the state, but he left office before ever having to implement it or explain how it will be funded or contain soaring costs.

Rare it is that the left coast picks up on the east coast but in California Gov. Schwartzenegger added a couple asterisks to Mitt Romney’s plan and says it will now provide health care for everyone in America’s largest state. Arnold’s proposal must have something going for it since it has been roundly condemned by all sides, from right and left. The issue is so important that pundits say if Arnold actually produces universal health care for California, people will forget he was ever an actor. Which most of us already have.

For years the Congress has been ducking this problem, but with 47 million uninsured and healthcare costs rising five times faster than wages, people are fed up and demanding action. No one got the message clearer than the trillion-dollar health insurance industry, the cause of our misery. They see reform coming and-- just like that-- embeds itself with the reformers.

On successive days recently, press conferences heralded the creation of two national coalitions for “universal health care”. And a leading participant of both is American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the powerful lobby whose “Harry and Louise” television ads in 1994 dug a grave for the Clinton health care bill before it ever got out of committee. What made the Clinton plan so ripe for ridicule was its complexity, and if AHIP has its way with its two new national coalition partners, “murk” and “maze” will be the Harry & Louise of 2008.

There is a lesson here for John Edwards, who long has championed the need for genuine universal health care. (Yes, John Edwards is running for President, though some of you may have missed it since he announced his candidacy during the Christmas holidays, thinking that would be a slow news period and he’d capture lots of headlines and TV interviews. As we now know, Gerald Ford died that same week and a dead president makes more news than an aspiring one. There also was a plethora of football bowl games that same week which is why you might also have missed Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) who announced for President on the afternoon the Central Michigan Chippewas were defeating Middle Tennessee State in the Motor City Bowl).

Anyway, here’s what Edwards must do to be a shoo-in for President in ’08: make health care, not poverty, the overriding issue of his campaign and keep it simple. That means a plan that makes sense and everyone understands, such as those government-financed health care systems enjoyed by every other country in the industrialized world where they spend less than we do and cover everyone.

If Edwards wants a state universal healthcare model to emulate, he’ll want to look at Vermont, not Massachusetts. Last year Democratic legislators in Vermont passed, and public pressure forced a reluctant Republican governor to sign, the most far-reaching healthcare reform legislation enacted by any state in over 30 years. All the state’s uninsured will have access to affordable healthcare, regardless of income, and insurance premiums for all Vermonters will be the lowest in the country.

Seems to me there once was a political slogan “as Vermont goes, so goes the nation”. Let that be true in the fight for universal healthcare.