Yesterday, a Washington Post story reported that House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) called President Bush’s Social Security plan “a dead horse,” spurring a great deal of controversy and media coverage.

But he wasn’t done there. According to the Post, “Thomas said lawmakers should debate whether Social Security benefits should differ for men and women, because women live longer. ‘We never have debated gender-adjusting Social Security,’ he said. A House leadership official said that not even Republicans on Thomas’s committee would vote for that idea.”

Talk about a dead horse.

But Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who has touted his new communications shop, was quick to demagogue Thomas’ comment,
saying in a statement, “And if a 50 percent benefit cut is not enough, now we learn Republicans are aiming to push even deeper cuts for America’s women. Any suggestion that women do not deserve the same benefits as men is just plain wrong.”

In Reid’s world, a stray comment by an eccentric House Republican is proof of a GOP master plan to screw women. Come on.