From this morning’s edition of The Hill, it would appear House Democrats are finding things to complain about - even in places where it takes a herculean effort to bend the facts to their view.

Congressional Democrats will focus on the economy next week in an effort to win political advantage from public fears about an approaching recession.

This underscores the party leadership’s concern to avoid getting bogged down in more debate about Iraq and to make sure it is President Bush and Republicans who are blamed in the 2008 election for voter anxieties about the economy.

So pivoting off the issue of doing nothing of note this Congress, except for a minimum-wage increase and 47 post offices receiving names, the House leadership will attempt to blame Congressional Republicans for the “bad economy” instead of working in a bipartisan effort to find solutions.

To illustrate the disconnect between House leaders and reality, here are some points to consider:

• On November 2, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released new jobs figures – 166,000 jobs created in October. Since August 2003, 8.31 million jobs have been created, with 1.68 million jobs created over the 12 months that ended in October.
• The economy has now added jobs for 50 straight months – the longest period of uninterrupted job growth on record. The unemployment rate remains low at 4.7 percent.
• Real GDP grew at a strong 3.9 percent in the third quarter of 2007. The economy has now experienced six years of uninterrupted growth, averaging 2.8 percent a year since 2001.
• Real after-tax per capita personal income has risen by 12.7 percent – an average of over $3,800 per person – since January 2001.

“They’re making this up as they go along,” Rep. Adam Putnam (Fla.), the Republican Conference chairman, said.

A couple of questions to ask during this time, according to House Democrats, of woe:

• Why hasn’t there been a clean AMT patch passed by the House which protects millions of Americans from paying a tax originally conceived for the uber-rich, while protecting millions of more Americans who create our vibrant economy from a $70 billion permanent tax increase?
• If things are as bad as they seem, why do we need the multi-trillion-dollar “Mother of All Tax Hikes“?

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Looks like a federal panel is looking into freeing thousands of crack distributors.

Should the panel adopt the new policy, the sentences of 19,500 inmates would be reduced by an average of 27 months. About 3,800 inmates now imprisoned for possession and distribution of crack cocaine could be freed within the next year, according to the commission’s analysis. The proposal would cover only inmates in federal prisons and not those in state correctional facilities, where the vast majority of people convicted of drug offenses are held.

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From the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne:

Democrats in Congress are discovering what it’s like to live in the worst of all possible worlds. They are condemned for selling out to President Bush and condemned for failing to make compromises aimed at getting things done.

Democrats complain that this is unfair, and, in some sense, it is. But who said that politics was fair?

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The Politico points out the oh-for-40 record of House Democrats when it comes to changing things in Iraq.

As the congressional session lurches toward a close, Democrats are confronting some demoralizing arithmetic on Iraq.

The numbers tell a story of political and substantive paralysis more starkly than most members are willing to acknowledge publicly, or perhaps even to themselves.

Since taking the majority, they have forced 40 votes on bills limiting President Bush’s war policy.

Only one of those has passed both chambers, even though both are run by Democrats. That one was vetoed by Bush.

Indeed, the only war legislation enacted during this Congress has been to give the president exactly what he wants, and exactly what he has had for the past five years: more money, with no limitations.

It is now expected that vote number 41 will be offered this week, despite the fact that the surge is working, and troops are coming home - on a timeline set by generals, not congressmen.

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Proponents of the soon-to-be-twice rejected SCHIP plan in Congress should take note of the actions of Oregon (where five of the state’s Congressional delegation and all the constitutional officers are Democrats).

From The Wall Street Journal:

Oregon voters passed judgment Tuesday on a plan that would have made their state children’s health insurance program “universal.” Sound familiar?

It should, because Oregon reproduced the current Schip fracas in D.C. on the state level–and the referendum took a major shellacking, with voters siding three to two against. Oregon’s expansion was almost identical to the one backed by Congressional Democrats, so let’s conduct a post-mortem, which may also be a portent.

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Apparently the fact that the Orange County wildfire was set by a boy playing with matches is not stopping certain people, including the Senate Democratic Leader, from trying to blame global warming.

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From the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR):

Government and academic estimates indicate that as of 2006 there are 11 to 12 million illegal aliens living in the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies estimated the illegal alien population at 10 million as of November 2004. FAIR estimates that in 2007 the illegal alien population is above 13 million persons.

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From the liberal The New Republic November 5 edition.

Clueless
The New Republic

Editorial: November 5, 2007 issue; P. 1
Forget “liberal”: Given a few more weeks like the ones congressional Democrats just endured, and the dreaded L-word they’ll be struggling to shake is “losers.” Children’s health care, government spying, the atrocities of the Ottoman Empire, the toxic ramblings of Representative Pete Stark–you name the issue, Dems managed to get their clocks cleaned in the p.r. battle with a fractured Republican minority led by a lame-duck president only marginally more popular with the American public than Chinese toy manufacturers.

Indeed, watching Democrats’ political advantage dissolve virtually overnight has been a bit like sitting through one of those Very Bad Day comedy movies, in which the hapless hero loses his job, his wife, and his faithful dog all before dinnertime, getting himself arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct in the process. On October 17, backed into a corner by the fancy procedural footwork of Republicans, House Democrats were forced to pull legislation aimed at scaling back the expanded wiretapping powers Congress granted President Bush in August. That same day, Speaker Nancy Pelosi felt compelled to walk back her pledge to call a House vote on whether the Ottoman Empire’s slaughter of Armenians during World War I officially qualified as genocide–a matter of little interest to American voters but of such intense concern to our Turkish allies that even many Democrats had abandoned Pelosi on the issue. The next day, Pelosi’s caucus also failed to override President Bush’s veto of the bill reauthorizing and expanding the wildly popular s-chip program that provides health care to poor children. More galling still, in the heat of the s-chip debate, California Democrat Pete Stark let loose a tirade about how Republicans refused to fund health care but were content to let our military men and women be shipped off to Iraq to “get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.” As a result, rather than spending their post-vote hours spotlighting the uncompassionate conservatism of today’s GOP, Democratic leaders found themselves beset by Republican calls for Stark’s head. All told, it was enough to make you long for the comparatively carefree days of September’s “General Betray Us” scandal.

Not to kick a party when it’s down, but what in God’s name is wrong with congressional Dems? It’s one thing to lose all your battles when you’re the beleaguered minority crushed beneath the boot heel of a well-liked commander-in-chief and a power-mad congressional majority. But, when you can’t manage to win even one lousy spin cycle under the current politically felicitous circumstances, voters are going to start wondering if you simply don’t have what it takes to govern–if perhaps you really do deserve that 25 percent approval rating.

To be fair, the party is in a tough spot, having essentially regained power on a promise to get us out of Iraq, only to find that ending a war isn’t exactly an easy task. And some Dems are whining about the continued difficulty of getting anything done when the party has only a slim majority in the House and an even narrower edge in the Senate–while dealing with a president who doesn’t seem to understand that he is supposed to quietly sit out the rest of his term in the White House gym. If the Republicans aren’t willing to play nice, what’s a well-intentioned Democrat to do?

Grow a pair–that’s what. Whatever concrete challenges Democrats face, there is no excuse for the party being repeatedly, consistently outgunned in the area of pure public relations. In part, this can be blamed on Dems’ talent for picking the wrong battles. Yes, genocide is a terrible thing. But sticking one’s finger in the eye of a major (and temperamental) Muslim ally for the sake of symbolically denouncing atrocities committed nearly a century ago by a political entity that no longer exists suggests a troubling inability to prioritize. Worse yet, when a majority of Armenian-Americans reside in the home state of the House speaker, it opens one up to charges of naked pandering.

Equally disturbing, you get the sense that Democrats still don’t grasp the extent to which Republicans regard congressional politics as war. Or maybe they do get it (one would hope so, after the past few years) but lack the stomach for the fight, whether because of some high-minded notion of congressional comity or some self-congratulatory sense of their superior character. Either way, they need to wake up and smell the napalm. House Republicans are proudly committed to thwarting Dems at every turn, and their success in tying up the wiretapping bill was no fluke. Minority members have assembled a working group known as the Floor Action Team–or FAT–charged with learning how to use the House’s most arcane rules to derail legislative progress. Classy? Not especially. Effective? Clearly.

It’s not as though Dems are completely clueless. In the midst of her Very Bad Week, Pelosi sent a letter to her caucus announcing a p.r. push to improve the party’s image before the accelerating presidential race pushes Congress off stage. Hoping to remind the public of all the things the 110th has achieved thus far–ethics reform, a bump in the minimum wage, an increase in student aid–House Dems are being instructed to hold more town-hall meetings and press conferences, as well as to up the flow of e-mail and snail mail to constituents. Majority Whip James Clyburn will track which members are the most enthusiastic cheerleaders.

But the next few weeks are likely to bring more heated confrontations than outright victories. (Bush has, among other things, vowed to veto upcoming spending bills.) And, unless Dems get better at the crucial spin battles– especially in cases when things don’t break their way–they aren’t going to have a majority to squander for very long.

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Click here to watch

CNN’s JACK CAFFERTY: “Remember back when the Democrats won control of Congress last year? Who could forget? Included in their string of broken promises was a vow to actually put in five days a week, you know, like the rest of us.

Well, fast-forward about ten months. Just like their vow to end the war in Iraq, turns out they lied about their work schedule, too. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer now says the House will not be in session next year on Fridays, except in June to work on appropriations bills. Hoyer says he wants more time for Members of Congress to, ‘work in their districts and be close to their families.’ Democrats insist they have made significant gains since they’ve been the majority party. They point to raising the minimum wage and some watered-down ethics and lobbying legislation. That’s pretty much it.

The House also cast a record-setting 1,000 roll call votes, but Republicans point out only about 100 of those were on bills that got signed into law and more than 40 of them were things like naming post offices and other property. Not exactly heavy lifting, is it?

As for the shorter workweek, Republican Whip Roy Blunt asked if this is a reward for all of Congress’ accomplishments this year. The public has had a belly full of Congress. Their approval ratings are the lowest they have ever been. Gee, I wonder why. Here’s the question: Is it a good idea for the Democratic-led Congress to revert to a shorter workweek?  …

You know, on the one hand they lied about working five days a week, Wolf. On the other hand, if they’re not in session, they can’t do a lot harm to the country, either.”

(CNN’s Situation Room, 10/29/07)

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Apparently the Washington press corps needed some extra help in deciphering whether Speaker Pelosi supports the “Mother of All Tax Hikes.”

Following the unveiling of arguably the most politically explosive domestic policy bill of the 110th Congress last Thursday, Pelosi seemed to wholeheartedly support the tax overhaul authored by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rangel.

“I certainly support his plan,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) said to the assembled reporters.

But when the transcript of the briefing came out, words were inserted — highlighted by brackets — clarifying that she supported his goal, if not his specific proposals.

The final transcript read: “I certainly support his plan [to begin tax reform.]”

The distinction is an important one. Rangel was immediately criticized by the GOP as he announced his highly controversial tax plan and Republicans started trying to tie the plan to Pelosi and the Democratic leadership.

Well, that certainly makes sense [not really, but we’ll just wink and nod like we do].

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