The feint

Today the Republicans are going to throw the American public and the Democrats in Congress a two course meal of fishing bait.

One course is the challenge to the Ohio electors. The other is the Gonzales confirmation hearing. Neither one is critical to the Republican strategy in the early 2005 legislative session.

What is critical to the Republican strategy is success on Social Security reform. Josh Marshall has an incisive analysis of what that really means.

I couldn't believe Tom DeLay up there at the end of the House debate denouncing the Democrats for an attack on democracy by challenging the Ohio votes. What a stink pot! What was even more ridiculous was the applause the other House Republicans gave him afterward. His thesis seemed to be that any suggestion of partisan voting irregularities in Ohio was a shameful attack on America. Any questioning of the notorious voting process, like everything else a Democrat ever says, is cause for rebuke.