What's the matter with you? I think your brain is going soft with all that comedy you are playing with that young girl.

I made the mistake of tuning in to the news just long enough last night to hear that the Massachusetts results are the result of Obama coddling his base and "overreaching."

The narrative from the DLC/ Blue Dog wing of the party is that because liberals refused to compromise the democrats lost their 60 supermajority. A supermajority, I might add, that was clear to anyone paying attention months ago that we didn't really have.

Judging by the comments of "progressive" bloggers like Josh Marshall and Ezra Klein much of Brown's election falls squarely on the shoulders of liberals who continue to make "the perfect the enemy of the good.

I don't pretend to speak for all liberals, but here's how I see the breakdown on some of the major issues confronting the country and why it becomes clear that many, many of us have become completely disillusioned with the democratic party.

HEALTH CARE
OPTIMUM POSITION: Single payer health insurance provided to all legal citizens financed through higher taxes on the wealthy, drug importation allowed.
COMPROMISE POSITION: Government provided national public option coupled with insurance company regulation that would broaden coverage and drive down prices to those in private insurance plans.
LOW-BAR: Medicare expansion coupled with new insurance company regulation.

IRAQ
OPTIMUM POSITION: Immediate withdrawal of all but a handful of token troops, close most permanent bases.
COMPROMISE POSITION: Lengthy (several years) withdrawal of all but a handful of token troops, close most permanent bases.
LOW-BAR: Token withdrawal of troops leaving tens of thousands of soldiers in Iraq and no base closures.

BANKING/ FINANCE
OPTIMUM POSITION: Glass Steagall reinstituted, Banking and Lending institutions separated again, assets of major financial institutions seized and nationalized, executives and decision makes shown the door or prosecuted.
COMPROMISE POSITION: Some re-regulation of finance including controls on executive compensation.
LOW-BAR: Executives called before congress to have their hands slapped every few months but pretty much get to continue on unabated with ruining the economy.

GAY RIGHTS
OPTIMUM POSITION: Repeal of DOMA and DADT. Major speech towards gay rights and push to nationalize gay marriage.
COMPROMISE POSITION: Repeal of DADT.
LOW-BAR: Lip service to gay rights issues.

ECONOMY
OPTIMUM POSITION: Major federalized jobs program with investment in future industry such as green jobs and rebuilding infrastructure. Major and immediate credit card regulation. Mortgage and bankruptcy relief.
COMPROMISE POSITION: Stimulus package build around appeasing concerns of faux deficit hawks rather that what's needed. Token credit card regulation.
LOW-BAR: Weak stimulus package and focus on re-inflating housing bubble rather than addressing core problems with economy.

On almost every issue Obama and the democrats have been weak, spineless corporate suck-ups that weren't even to meet the compromised low-bar for most of the members of the democratic party. As absurd as that is when you put it in the context of 30+ years of proven failure of conservative economic policies, coupled with a clear electoral mandate then Obama's failure to make progress on much of anything important is almost surreal in it's breadth.

Look; if this was a corporation and we were shareholders we could sue the leadership of the democratic party for malpractice. They'

To a new world of gods and monsters!

I wrote this yesterday morning but didn't get it finished. In light of the Senate's asshattery today I'm going to add a little update at the end.

Here's how I would sum up the state of things in Washington right now with the financial crisis.

A = A lame duck President who may be sincere about the need for action or may be cynically using the crisis to rob the federal piggy bank one last time before he leaves office.

B = The Democratic leadership (Pelosi/ Reid) who believe they need to do something or they'll get blamed with the inevitable collapse.

C = The actual Democratic segment of the Democratic congress who won't sign on to any plan that doesn't help regular Americans through this crisis.

D = Die hard Republican members of congress who want to use this crisis to push through more deregulation. Plus they want to pose as populists who actually care what voters think.

A proposed the original $700 billion dollar bailout and in negotiation with B they worked out a "compromise" that was really just the initial plan with progressive bobbles attached.

C and D hated the plan and torpedoed it. After the vote D blamed B for their votes because B said something mean about them.

There appears to no situation in which A and B working together will be able to provide a bill that would appeal to either or both C and D.

Any solution generated by D would be no solution at all and should be rejected out of hand. They need to be removed from the equation.

I say we let C propose a solution and push it through. They seem to be the only group that have the country's best interests in mind.

UPDATE 10/1 - The absolute worse thing we could do would be to ignore my suggestion about rejecting solutions from D out of hand, but that appears to be exactly what Senate Democrats are trying to do.

Fuckers are tacking right. God, I hate our Democratic leadership.

This country cannot house its houseless - feed its foodless.

I'm a Democrat.

That was a difficult thing to type.

The Democratic party has at more times than I can count over my almost lifetime membership in it infuriated me in the positions it's leadership has taken. There have been many, many times over the past several years that I've considered leaving the party.

So why would I remain a registered Democrat? Why not join the Socialist, or Green parties?

Distilled down to it's base there are two separate reasons I remain in the Democratic party.

The first is that the platform of the Democratic party is generally progressive in nature and I'm a progressive.

The second, perhaps more important reason is it's the largest and most organized alternative to the other major political party - the Republicans. A Republican party which at it's core has spent the last thirty years working to destroy everything that is good and decent about the country I love.

So I'm left to supporting an imperfect party that at it's best is able to win us things like Social Security but at it's worst it can barely stand up to save Social Security when it was under assault by Republicans who believe the governing rule of society should be survival of the fittest.

As long as I call myself a Democrat I recognize that doing so entails responsibilities to my fellow party members. Those responsibilities usually take the form of compromising on my personal preference for who will represent us in contests with Republicans.

At the start of this seemingly endless presidential primary I supported Kucinich. He was the most progressive of the bunch and his politics are closest to my own. He lost his bid for the nomination fairly early into the campaign.

My fallback candidate was Edwards. His commitment to social justice was Kennedyesque. He voted for the war while he was in the senate but had soundly renounced that vote. His candidacy crashed and burned shortly after Kucinich's.

At this point I was pretty pissed off. It seemed to me that the truly progressive voices were dropping out while we were left with what I considered establishment candidates in Clinton and Obama. Yes, these two candidates represented historical firsts but their was nothing about their candidacies that threatened official Washington.

I also had some sour grapes about how about how my candidates were treated by the media...

But after I calmed down and thought about it I realized that part of belonging to a political party is that not everybody in the party thinks exactly like I do. Everybody else has a say. I may disagree but as long as the goals of the party are something I can agree with, how we get there isn't as important.

Besides it didn't matter if I thought my preferred candidates would do better against the Republican nominee in the fall. My candidates lost.

So I compromised again. Ultimately putting a Democrat into the Whitehouse where the Joint Chiefs will have to answer to that person and who will make the next few Supreme Court nominations is the thing that's most important to me.

Tomorrow the primaries end and the supporters of one of the candidates are going to be asked to compromise and put aside thier considerable personal stake in their candidate for the sake of the party. Just like millions of their fellow Democrats have had to do during the course of this last year as their preferred candidates were defeated.

The choice is theirs and theirs alone.

Are they Democrats?

They're stuck with each other and they've got to ride all the way to the end of the line and it's a one-way trip and the last stop is the cemetery.

While we're in the midst of one of the most contentious primaries I can remember one cannot help but stop in and visit the comments sections of any of the major "neutral" progressive blogs without reading some form of the following remarks espoused by supporters of one or the other of the two remaining democratic candidates:

"I will never vote for Senator xxx if they win the nomination. I'd sooner vote for John McCain."

Curious as to why self-identified Democrats would prefer a Republican Senator and new BFB (Best Friend of Bush) to a Senator from their own party I quickly came to the conclusion, as I often do, that I must be in the dark about something. As an example: that whole line dancing phenomenon a few years ago caught me completely flat-footed. Don't even get me started on the Hannah Montana thing.

The obvious solution would be to dive into the candidates positions and try and figure out what is about John McCain that is so appealing to so many Democrats. There has to be something more than his pension for angrily swearing at fellow Senators and propensity to akwardly hug George W. Bush that appeals to blue-state progressives.

So I did a little research. By which I mean I screwed around with "the google." What I found surprised me. Clearly my fellow Democrats were right and McCain was the superior choice. Just consider the following issues --

Abortion/ Stem-Cells

Barack Obama voted against the ban on late term abortion. He supports "legalized abortion in accordance with Roe v. Wade." He has voted against parental notification and for expansion of Embryonic Stem-Cell lines.

Hillary Clinton voted against the ban on late term abortion. She voted against parental notification and for expansion of Embryonic Stem-Cell lines. She has a 100% NARAL voting record.

John McCain voted for the ban on late term abortion. He voted for a continued ban of abortion on military bases, for mandatory parental notification, has indicated he would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned and has a 0% NARAL rating.

Clearly John McCain is the best choice for those of use who want to protect the right to choose.

Judiciary

Barack Obama voted no on confirming Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. He voted no toconfirming John Roberts as Chief Justice.

Hillary Clinton voted no on confirming Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. She voted no to confirming John Roberts as Chief Justice.

John McCain voted yes on confirming Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. He voted yes toconfirming John Roberts as Chief Justice.

Once again McCain appears the clear choice for progressives who fear the court has moved to far to the right in recent years.

Iraq

Barack Obama promises to "...immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda."

Hillary Clinton promises to "...end our military engagement in Iraq's civil war and immediately start bringing our troops home. As president, one of Hillary's first official actions would be to convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, her Secretary of Defense, and her National Security Council. She would direct them to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home starting with the first 60 days of her Administration."

John McCain promises to keep us in Iraq for a hundred years.

Obviously for those of us who want U.S. troops out of Iraq McCain's the answer.

I could go on and on about this but I think it's clear that, on issue after issue from global warming to ethics to the economy John McCain would obviously make a better President than that Democratic Senator running against your candidate who you hate with every fiber of your being.

I don't know why I didn't see that sooner.

A lot depends on who's in the saddle.

I'm still around.

Besides the usual craziness that surrounds pretty much everybody I know with a family (work, kids to practice, finding a way to get dinner before 8:30, rabid hamsters) I really haven't been able to bring myself to write about politics; even when I have the time.

For most of my life I've been a Democrat but also what I'd term a "wide-eyed" Democrat. I'm a Democrat that's never suffered under the delusion that my party is fully functional nor that inaction of all of it's platforms would somehow be a magical panacea that would cure all of the ills of American society.

What's kept me calling myself a Democrat and occasionally volunteering has been the simple fact that, for all it's dysfunctions, the Democratic party is the single organized body strong enough to stop the great evil that threatens our country: conservative Republicans.

When the Democratic party fails to fulfill even this role then I'm left joining many progressives who've supported Democrats and who made '06 possible asking "what the hell's the point?"

There has been so much outrageous stuff happening this last seven years and all we've had out of the leaders in the Democratic party are excuses. I'm tired of it. If FDR were to come back to life and see what's become of the modern Democratic party he'd get up out of his wheelchair and kick the living crap out of Pelosi and Reid, not to mention weenies like Ben Nelson and Washington's Brian Baird (a sucker for the Bushies if there ever was one.)

Politics is about leadership. The mealy-mouthed, hide-under-their-desk when it counts cowardice that the Democratic party has been exhibiting ain't it. We don't expect our leaders to all be Michael Jordan. We do expect that, at the very least, they'll get off the bench and get into the game.

Because it's not our bloody war.

If this is to be believed than I think Democrats may have a bigger problem than they realize.

Democrats will still have to line up votes to pass the final version, which is known as a conference report, and could lose some support from those House Democrats who might not be satisfied with the more amorphous withdrawal goal rather than a firm date. But the leadership is confident that it can secure the votes necessary, arguing that the party cannot afford to fall short now. Members of the Out of Iraq Caucus have indicated they will not try to derail the final bill.

The Out of Iraq Caucus which I assume is made up of members of the Progressive Caucus seems to have trouble with standing up for themselves here. Perhaps they should look to the much smaller in numbers Blue Dogs to see how concessions are won.

Progressives have compromised enough on this crap. We've gone from completely defunding and ordering the troops withdrawn to suggesting dates for withdrawing to "withdrawal goals." No more compromises. Hell, every day we don't impeach Bush's sorry ass is a compromise of a sort.

Draw a line in the sand here, people.

Are you mad, as well as stupid?

Unfortunately this 29% seems to have representation in about 50% of congress.

I listened to Washington congressman Brian Baird interviewed yesterday and was astounded at how utterly out of touch he was both in his assesment of the situation in Iraq and politics here it at home. He kept referring to discussions with the troops and how most of them want to "win." He dodged a direct question on the nature of the mission and the appropriateness of using soldiers to carry out vague, non-military mandates. He bobbed, weaved and floated like a butterfly and stung like a, well, butterfly.

Democrats in congress should be ashamed of themselves. They've gotten so used to acting reflexively against their base that they've taken up a position that puts them squarely on the wrong side of the majority of the country. They can try and hide behind mealy-mouthed nonsense about how this is the "first time congress has set a timetable for withdrawal" all they want. Nobody is buying it, least of all the people that helped put them in office in the first place.

This week Brad Pitt was voted the Sexiest Man Alive by "People" magazine but unfortunately he may lose the title in the Sexiest Man Electoral College.

With this weekend's announcements and the intention of expanding on my personal view of who should win the Democratic nomination for the presidency- no sitting U.S. Senator who has declared appeals to me. In my opinion the Iraq war hasn't just defined Bush, it's defined them. Their failure to fight forcefully against the war, even if they want to hide behind the weak argument that they were duped by the administration, makes them all appear a bunch of feckless weenies. They may be great politicians but they certainly aren't leaders.

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Oh, happy day.

Not just for Democrats. Republicans can once again fufill that role they seem so happy and comfortable in: whiny ass titty baby. The whining about congressional "minority rights" is just the warm up.

I heard a great proposal with regards to this issue- Democrats will pass Pelosi's old "minority bill of rights" as long as it's tied to a change in House rules so that the rules themselves can't be updated without support of 70% of House members.

Admit so, sir. This is some new form of torture. Say it, Brother Sir.

A friend recently asked me who I thought would take the Democratic nomination in '08. I haven't the foggiest. If you believe the press then it'll be Hillary or Obama. Yawn. Here's my personal take on the candidates and potential candidates so far...

Hillary Clinton - No, no, just NO. The appeal seems to be her profile, her enormous campaign war chest with would presumably give her an advantage in the general, and the "two-fer" we'd get from having Bill Clinton back in the Whitehouse as the First Spouse. So what?

Hillary has been a huge disappointment as a Senator. She represents a solidly blue state yet has continued to put her national political ambitions ahead of what's good for the country or what's good for the Democratic party. Her support for the war or, at the very least, her failure to criticize it's prosecution, should automatically disqualify her from the nomination as demonstratably lacking the judgment necessary to be President.

Barack Obama - Look, I loved his keynote speech at the convention, although it was delivered before the the wrong audience. Democrats aren't the ones pushing the red/ blue America meme.

Putting that aside the guy just hasn't lived up to the hype. There was a particularly memorable moment when he got Pwned by John McCain over torture that comes to mind. He just comes across as too nice a guy to deal realistically with Republicans who favor eliminationist policies towards Democrats.

John Edwards - I like the populist message and like seeing someone focus on economic concerns but the fact is he did very poorly in his debate with V.P. Yosemite Sam. If you can't face down the Prince of Darkness, who can you face down.

Dennis Kucinich - Love his policitics but don't think he has a serious chance at fundraising and the nomination. Would love to be wrong on this.

John Kerry and Al Gore - I'm lumping these guys together not just because they share the dubious honor of already having been the Democratic candidate for the Presidency but they also both failed to understand the depths Republicans would go to to steal the Presidency nor be willing to put up a real fight. Kerry sins on this issue are particularly unforgivable.

I know I left a ton of potential candidates off this list the whole exercise is beginning to leave me depressed. I'm really hoping for a white horse this year to come in and shake things up.

You're hanging around my fuckin' neck like a vulture, like impending death.

Who gives a rat's petutie what Joe Lieberman says has to be done about Iraq? Follow-up question: when will the media do the Senate math and recognize Joe represents only Joe at this point?

Speaking in Hartford last Wednesday, Lieberman remained unwavering in his opposition to Democrats' calls for withdrawing troops from Iraq. "What we are doing now there is not working, but that doesn't mean in any sense that it is time for us to retreat," he said. "This is a test in a very difficult and dangerous hour in our history."

But his victory also was something of an aberration, and whatever the fate of Lieberman's proposed bipartisan group, which he pledges to introduce in January, his continued support of Bush's stay-the-course approach places him well outside the Democratic mainstream.

"The voters spoke on Tuesday that they're unhappy with the status quo," Lieberman said. However, he added, "I don't believe they want us to pick up and leave."

Since upwards of 60% of Americans support a withdrawal from Iraq I'd say that Joe's support for the war doesn't just put him outside of the "Democratic mainstream" but out of the American mainstream.

I know Joe did great by pretending he wasn't a Bush lapdog during the general election and fooled enough Dems/ Moderates to make his almost overwhelming Republican support signifigant enough to get him re-elected but that doesn't in any shape or form mean we should take Joe seriously now. He is not a serious man.

We need no urging to hate humans.

Are you digging this Bush risks rallying Dems storyline as much as I am? It's as if they think there's a good portion of Democratic voters who either weren't going to vote this coming Tuesday or were going to vote for a Republican representative until they suddenly were reminded they didn't like George Bush.

The Bush presidency has been like a paper cut that hasn't been allowed to heal for five years and has had lemon juice poured on it daily. It's not something that's just going to slip the mind of Dems and progressives.

They're coming to get you Barbara.

It's pretty obvious there's some google-bombing going on when the quality of political news articles at the top of the page has dropped so dramatically over the last few weeks. This piece is a perfect example: "Are Democrats too cocky?"

It's got all of the usual conservative bugaboos:

• Speaker Pelosi? Check.
• Barney Frank? Check.
• Incoherent Democratic agenda? Check.
• Higher taxes, more abortions and communism run large? Check.
• Terrorists winning? Check.

Sam Seder's recently taken to inviting John Amato from Crooks and Liars onto his show where John will play clips of Republican politicians making any of the above statements during debates and getting literally laughed at. It's really enjoyable to hear some Republican congressman get pissy because the crowd thinks his claim that they had a "robust response to Katrina" is hysterical.

Still I have to wonder about the backwashers like the author of the above article that still hold on to the delusions for dear life. I'll admit that there's a certain part of me that holds a certain respect for their certainty in the face of, well, objective reality. On the other hand I realize that should the Democrats meet conventional wisdom and eke out a victory the conservative dead-enders won't just go quietly into the night. They just have way too much invested in the delusion.

Willkommen. Bienvenue. Welcome. C'mon in.

It's hard to believe but it's been just about fourteen years since William Jefferson Clinton was sworn in as the President of the United States. I keep track by gauging the age of my oldest daughter who just turned thirteen. Mrs. Wormer was pregnant with her when we went to Washington D.C. for the inauguration.

Mrs. Wormer and I had been very politically active - working to defeat a couple of horrendous anti-gay ballot measures - and she had purchased the trip to the inauguration as a surprise. The trip represented the fulfillment of a lifetime dream to see Washington with opportunity to be there live to see the Reagan era unceremoniously booted out the icing on the cake.

It was an incredible, one-in-a-lifetime experience. There were hundreds of thousands of like-minded progressives and Democrats strung throughout hundreds of tents on the mall and attending the various public inauguration ceremonies. Oddly enough the part that really sticks in my mind all these years later isn't the actual swearing in and Clinton's upbeat speech, but a public concert at the Lincoln Memorial a couple of days before.

Performing that night were Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Tony Bennett and Bob Dylan. But what sticks in my mind aren't those performances so much as an offhand question by emcee Whoopi Goldberg. At some point in the evening she asked the crowd "when's the last time you felt welcome in Washington?" We went nuts. It'd been a long damned time.

If you believe the polls and the chatterboxes on tv there's a pretty good chance we might be welcome in at least some parts of Washington again starting this January. I'm not as optimistic about our chances, having been burned pretty good the last couple of times out, but I really do hope they're right and the Democrats take congress. That feeling that D.C. actually belonged to the "we the people" and that it was okay to hope again was pretty wonderful.

I'd love to feel that again.

Ha! Watch Dib! Watch as I bring a royal audience to the downfall of the human race!

This article by Ron Hutcheson on the recently released national intelligence estimate which provided that the war in Iraq is actually making us LESS safe and how that could hurt Republicans politically is a pretty good read until you get to this bit:

But Goldford said the political impact depends on "how skillful the Democrats are in exploiting" the newly disclosed intelligence findings.

We're doomed.

Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk down middle, sooner or later, get squished.

I would hope that Democratic leaders would take Matt Stoller's advice...

The admission that progressives are winning influence within the party is something I've noticed since my four years in politics. The party has been moving away from the DLC model of triangulation, and towards the politics of contrast. This is natural for an opposition party, but it also means that not listening to the progressive base could cause an increasing number of problems for centrists Democrats.

...to heart but I won't hold my breath.

Stoller is commenting on a piece by Ben Smith claiming Hillary Clinton is a shoe-in for the Democratic nomination (tons of money) and has a "50-50 chance" of actually winning the White House. Amazingly he doesn't say a thing about this bombshell.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that despite Hillary's money she doesn't have a chance in hell of winning the Democratic nomination and, were she to beat those odds she would be squashed like a grape in the highway in the general election.

Centrists and DLC types have consistently underestimated the strong sentiment against the Iraq war among the Democratic base. They have continued to try and play the middle by taking a powder on confronting the President both pre-war and, even more importantly in my view, after the invasion as the country sank into a bloody civil war. More than anything the Democratic party nominee for President in 2008 cannot be a pro-Iraq war candidate. The base simply won't have it.

But were she to beat the odds and slap the base down by winning the nomination her candidacy would be DOA. The political strategy she's been operating under seems to be an assumption that her base is in the bag (hardly) so she can afford to take "centrist*" positions early on in order to attract undecideds in the general election. Conventional wisdom has held that undecideds are the ones that actually decide elections.

George W. Bush has proven that this particular bit of conventional wisdom is wrong. Voters have become increasingly apathetic over the last several years with the importance of undecided voters diminishing as fewer and fewer actually go to the polls. The important thing to winning an election now is getting out your base on election day.

Short of a very public mea culpa and a loud denunciation of the war in Iraq and Bush's handling of same there's no way the Democratic base would turn out vote for Hillary and she would lose the election handily.

(* With over half the country now opposed to the Iraq war I'm not even sure you could say that a position supporting the President's handling of same could be deemed "centrist.")

Now instead of a big dark blur, I see a big bright blur.

Democrats rolled out their new national security platform with little fanfare, not for lack of trying. To get the national media to notice a strategy rollout by the Democratic leaders in a meaningful way you'd pretty much have to have Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi take the press conference wearing domanatrix outfits. Even then the reporters would be yawning about two minutes in unless Harry started to crack the whip, so to speak.

As predicted the platform was a long list of sensible security strategems ranging from better protecting our ports to actually putting some sort of effort into catching Osama bin Laden. Republican leaders, whose favorite line of attack over the last few months has been to accuse the Democrats of not having a plan for national security, quickly denounced the plan for national security as a stunt. Vice-President Cheney who is probably the most irony-challenged Republican in America responded to the plan by saying Democrats didn't have a credible plan for hunting down Osama. I assume he prefers we stick with the Bush "I don't know where he is and I really don't spend much time thinking about him" plan. It's a weird thing to be attacked by the Vice-President of an administration that believes pixie dust will bring the evildoers to justice.

On Iraq we get more of the same wimpy crap the national Democratic leadership is so good at. At some future date when the Iraqi military is somewhat ready to take over we might kind of maybe think of removing a few of our troops. Or not. Murtha's carefully crafted approach to strategic withdrawal to neighboring countries on a fixed timetable is nowhere to be seen.

Putting aside how bad it is for America to have the major opposition party to the party in power continue to refuse to actually oppose, I can't for the life of me see how this is good politics. Iraq is George W. Bush's war. George W. Bush is the Republican's spokesman (or "brand" as Ken Mehlman told the G.O.P troops this week.) As much of a mess as Iraq is does anyone expect it to be better situation come November? Democrats continuing the "me-too" ing on Iraq are putting the party in a position where they'll be considered part of the problem, not the solution when election time comes around. And let's not forget Iran continues to loom just off the political radar. How will the Democrats be able to throw any type of opposition to an expansion of the war in Iraq into Iran if they don't draw a line on how the current war is being prosecuted?

Once again my favorite whipping boy; the Democratic party leadership have failed to do what's necessary to lead. They presented us a security plan that's been polled and focused-grouped to within an inch of it's life and expect us to applaud it as some sort of heroic act of bravery. Here's an idea: if you want to change the perception of the party as being weak why not actually stand-up to an unpopular President and his unpopular war. Shut down the Senate because Frist continues to refuse to open the second phase of the Iraq war intelligence investigation. Do something. Anything. But for God's sake don't give us another position paper.

Like, it's a gggghost!!

Democratic Senators had two options when facing Russ Feingold's call for censure: stand, fight and lose and try and change the broader frame that they're wimps or cut, run and lose and reinforce the broader frame that they're wimps.

Which would it be...

Democratic leaders shy away from censure plan

Democrats Beat Quick Retreat on Call to Censure President

Democrats attempt to postpone effort to censure Bush

Perhaps we should have offered them more Rooby Racks.