Shoring Up the Minimum Wage Vote

David Weigel, writing at Reasononline, has a wonderful look back at the Abramoff scandal that wasn't, "money in the freezer," and the very limp "culture of corruption" attacks. It includes some great quotes from writers making bold predictions about the upcoming fallout, like this from my favorite and yours, Frank Rich:

“Watergate itself increasingly looks like a relatively contained epidemic of corruption”

That's almost funny.

"They don't know Jack" is a good column that starkly illustrates exactly how out of touch the Senate and D.C. are with the American voter.

Fizzle-outs are becoming a fairly common occurence these days. Abramoff, Rove/Plame, Joe Wilson, Air America, Downing Street memos, pre-war intelligence, no tax cuts for the rich, and so on. I'm probably forgetting about a half a dozen.

These issues have two things in common. They are all political issues designed only to attain power through smear and innuendo. And, the sum of the issues is also the sum of what the Democratic Party has been doing the last six years.

Perhaps that's why the mid-term elections have tightened up so much. At the very least, America wants action on issues of security.

The Democrats seem afflicted by a coma-like state in which it's still Sept. 10, 2001. They believe that Americans are in the mood for amnesty and to spare terrorists the "torture" of loud music, cold rooms, or getting slapped in the face. They think the American voter wants to hold grand theoretical discussions on the finer points of civil liberties in the middle of a war.

But hey, it's not all bad news. All you readers out there raising a family on minimun wage would get a raise...to the new minimum wage.