Dean's first.

more cartoons. this is what america has come to.

mprov, I hope you saw my response (agreement) lastnight, last thread on the corporation/government position. :)

wow, that was tricky. saw mprov at 2, now he's at 3. Hmmm

?

2. if you're really 2. yes, i did, linda.

guess i'm just being kicked down the road for my comments last night...

mprov, did you go to bed last night?

tom, yes. i don't sleep much. hang over from the navy and long hours at sea.

m wrote "i don't sleep much. hang over from the navy and long hours at sea."

Any of you guys ever throw the captain's potted palm overboard?

wanted to, but no opportunity...

Why did I just have to sign in again?  Weird.

A recommend?  Kucinich fans?

More about the bird declines we discussed here several weeks ago, this doesn't just pertain to Florida, but everywhere in this country. 

WHAT BIRDS ARE TELLING US

Their population declines signal trouble for humans

So why should you care? There are still plenty of pigeons and blue jays around, and those white birds that seem to like roadside ditches. Most Floridians don't even know what an American kestrel (down 60 percent) or black skimmer (down 73 percent) looks like.

 http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/opnOPN79061907.htm

m wrote "wanted to [throw the captain's potted palm overboard]. but no opportunity."

Once in the seminary, about 4 of us were watching four classmates of ours playing euchre down in the courtyard from the 4th floor window of our dorm. We filled up one of those vinyl zipper bags you get when you buy a suit that someone had, because we boarded there, and threw it out the window. It had to have weighed like 300 pounds.

I suspect if we had hit them we would have killed them all, but we could hardly get it out the window so we were way off the mark. One of the world’s largest water balloons, it made a great crater near them when it exploded. They were basically saturated. It is pathetic, but we were like 16.

yes, but did you get caught?

guess i'm just being kicked down the road for my comments last night...

___________________________________________________________________________

Not at all mate............like Fred said, this isnt the place for cordiality and the Mclaughlin report or something to that effect............................thos eof us that elected not to go into the military can be pretty tough dudes too ya know......cheers

no, michael, my #4 comment was #2. my #17 was #16, etc...i was making a joke.

watch #18 become #19.

m wrote "yes, but did you get caught?"

That was justice denied.  No one ever identified us and nothing ever happened to us.  There was kind of a code.  Going to the authorities was a crime against humanity.  You had to have a long memory and basically rely on vigilante justice.  The only times we got in trouble was when everyone was caught doing the same transgression at once, like dorm riots.

18. Well, it HAD to be a joke, because mprov is the tops and no way would anyone INTENTIONALLY kick him down the road. :)

TBA Day 1--Ho Hum

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/oliver-willis/take-back-america-day-one_b_52700.html

There are two Americas. The America that gets tote bags at Take Back America 2007, and the America that doesn't. I am in the America that got a fancy tote bag, and that my friends is the highlight of this greatest of liberal confabs.

The two panels I attended were kind of underwhelming, and I don't say that to be mean but to be honest. Although I'm sure the panel I'm speaking on tomorrow will rock more than a world or two. At the "Conservative Failure" panel, it started out with a bang showcasing Max Blumenthal's excellent short film from CPAC but sadly slid downhill quickly after.  People are too polite at these events to tell someone to shut up, but no matter how worthy the cause you're advocating happens to be I don't think it excuses just random rambling about whatever happens to poke into your head.

The other panel, The New Progressive Majority, was less traumatic. Wunderkind pollster Stan Greenberg treated us to a bunch of slides telling us how awesome progressives are, how well the Democrats did, though he did end on a slide with a chart explaining just how much disdain Americans have for both parties. The Democrats are only slightly less hated, on balance.

When you skip breakfast it results in higher, less healthy cholesterol

levels. Skipping breakfast also makes the body less sensitive to

insulin. These effects could lead to increased health risks and weight

gain. So be good to yourself, eat breakfast. Try to include low/no

fat dairy, whole grain cereals or breads, and seasonal fruits as often

as you can.

but let's be real, just for a moment.

__________________________________________________________________________

I submit to you many would rather belong to a party that was not need of change (maybe in 30 or 40 years) but a group of Independent "free thinkers" simply committed to the ideals this nation was formed from.........so, whats wrong with that?

===================

Nothing,  Mike, and many of us have been there. 

The difference today is the system.  It has been modified with election rules and procedures that work for just the two major parties.  I will admit, for better or for worse, this was done intentionally. 

Now it is easy to talk the talk, but not to walk the walk.  In other words, a third party (really a multi-party) will not work until the system is changed to accomodate more than two parties. 

As long as other parties emerging act as a threat, rather than an alternative, this makes it worse.  The greens and Perot party, have shown the are nothing better than a threat to those that are closer to them than those that oppose them.

 The greens were much closer to Democrats and they helped Bush win.  Even if they had not voted anyway, had Nader endorsed Gore near the election, asking members to vote for him. Gore would have won. (In the same way, Perot followers directly resulted in Clinton's victory.)

But tragically, Nader thought it better to punish, to be rebellious and vindictive and make his followers the same way.  It might have felt warm and fuzzy at the time, but when Bush got elected (or not-elected) it was a hollow victory.  And the greens are still in denial that they did anything wrong.

If those party rules and election rules are going to change, it is not going to be accomplished through such threats and party-crashing.  It will be by appealing to one party in power that it is in their best interest and the best interest of the people and that Democracy will not be threatened by having a person rule with a minority of the voters supporting her/him, as we did with Clinton and I believe with GW Bush.  You must agree.  When I was a boy, people used to say that is how Hitler got in.

ADVERTISEMENT

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Mayor Bloomberg is decrying the state of the 2008 presidential race, faulting the major party candidates for offering shallow, simplistic prescriptions, and scolding the press for failing to demand more from those seeking the White House.

During an appearance at Google's headquarters in Silicon Valley yesterday, Mr. Bloomberg said the televised debates among the presidential candidates have been, in essence, a waste of time.

"They have absolutely nothing to do with the job and the qualifications. And they don't tell you anything about whether or not any of those candidates would be good or bad presidents. What they really say is, did they memorize their notes of ‘What to say if …' and whether their staff was able to anticipate," the mayor said. "If you look at both debates, they pandered, what I would argue, the same ways."

Mr. Bloomberg said the presidential candidates were exploiting the threat of terrorism, and failing to deliver solutions to problems such as illegal immigration, health care, and education.

"I think that none of them are addressing those issues," the mayor said during an exchange with reporters after the Google talk. "The press really is not doing its job of holding their feet to the fire. ... The tough questions are not what are you in favor of, but how are you going to get it through Congress?"

Mr. Bloomberg painted a picture of politicians in Washington dithering as America runs aground. "The country is in trouble," was his grim refrain.

The public critique of the presidential contest could be part of an effort on Mr. Bloomberg's part to lay the groundwork for an independent presidential bid. However, he insisted yesterday that he plans to serve as mayor through 2009 and then return to private life.

"I'm not a candidate for president," Mr. Bloomberg said. "My next career will be in philanthropy. I've done the government thing."

The mayor dismissed the debates as "just theater" and said he arrived at his assessment without having watched them on television.

Mr. Bloomberg's appearance on Google's campus came in the wake of visits from four declared presidential hopefuls, Senator Clinton, Governor Richardson of New Mexico, Senator McCain of Arizona, and a former senator from North Carolina, John Edwards. The mayor's chat was billed as part of a series dubbed "Authors @ Google." However, the autobiography that ostensibly prompted the invitation, "Bloomberg by Bloomberg," was released 10 years ago. "It is one of the seminal pieces of literature," he quipped.

Mr. Bloomberg warmed up the technology-oriented crowd of about 1,000 with tales of the "300-baud, acoustically coupled" modems used in the early days of the financial news and data service that went on to make him a billionaire.

"He's got some geek street cred," Google's top lobbyist in Washington, Alan Davidson, declared.

Mr. Bloomberg's freewheeling question-and-answer session was peppered with the kind of provocative, blunt talk that could appeal to some voters while alienating others. "It's probably because of our bad educational system, but the percentage of people who believe in creationalism is really scary for a country that's going to have to compete in a world where science and medicine require a better understanding," he said in one such foray.

Today, the mayor and Governor Schwarzenegger are to take part in a conference in Los Angeles warning that Washington is addicted to and paralyzed by partisanship. Messrs. Bloomberg and Schwarzenegger share the cover of Time magazine this week.

"Washington is sinking into a swamp of dysfunction….We're talking about a serious and harmful addiction here," Mr. Bloomberg was to tell attendees at an opening session last night, according to a prepared text released by his office. "Unfortunately, there's no ‘Promises' clinic for partisanship."

Earlier yesterday, Mr. Bloomberg joined San Francisco's mayor, Gavin Newsom, at an event to build pressure on Congress to drop a legislative provision — known as the Tiahrt Amendment after the Republican congressman from Kansas who sponsored it — that bars the federal government from releasing data identifying the gun dealers that sell the most guns used in crimes.

"It's a disgrace," Mr. Bloomberg said. "It's a triumph of special interests and ideology." He said the restrictions have led to the deaths of police officers by preventing local officials from targeting the bad apples among gun sellers.

The mayor showed a flash of anger when asked by a New York Sun reporter about claims that releasing the gun trace data could prompt a flurry of lawsuits against weapons dealers and manufacturers.

"Let me just get this straight. You're worried about lawsuits and I'm worried about going to funerals? That's the story. Which would you rather have? There's no flurry of lawsuits. If people obeyed the law, there wouldn't be any reason to sue," Mr. Bloomberg said. "That's a ridiculous argument to make."

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorials/142

Over the past seven years, the list of Americans who have stood up, at one time or another, to the Bush juggernaut of betrayal and deception has actually been quite long.

The problem is that such acts of courage are usually rewarded with a slander assault led by the White House and then echoed in coordinated talking points disseminated by Republican Party officials and the right wing media. Rarely does the Democratic leadership rally behind those Americans who have stuck their necks out, including prominent generals, ex-CIA operatives, and even individual Democratic members of Congress who aren’t intimidated by the thuggish Bush/Cheney/Rove tactics.

Given an alternative, fanciful, and intentionally mendacious view of reality offered up by the Bush cabal through a compliant mainstream media, the Democratic leadership has chosen, in general, to retreat from confronting an Alice-in-Wonderland worldview and artificially constructed "truthiness," created to meet White House political needs without regard to the facts.

Occasionally, Reid and Pelosi have themselves shown momentary courage. But, like Tom Daschle did, they quickly "back-off" when confronted with a withering assault.

Polls out this week show that the Democratic Congress is down so low in the dumps that they are basically in the pig slough with Bush. The Dems in power can’t seem to understand that their role is to lead the American people, not to become immobilized by the fictional alternative universe manufactured in Rove’s laboratory of perfidy.

What happens in such a situation is that the Dem leadership regularly leaves our nation’s wounded heroes (on the homefront) on the political battlefield as the Dems in Congress retreat in fear from the right wing volleys. That means people like Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson, Richard Clarke, the top retired Pentagon generals critical of the war, ex-intelligence officers, Iraq Veterans against the war, and so many, many others are left high and dry to fend for themselves.

And the Congressional Dems have pretty much given up on bringing our heroes in Iraq home so that they don’t continue to get killed for lies, vanity, egotism and profiteering.

It is, indeed, a serious sign of weakness when you leave your wounded heroes behind. That sort of behavior doesn’t go over well with the American public – and it shouldn’t.

The Dem leadership should be protecting the flanks of those who stand up for the truth against a fusillade of lies (and that includes the Democratic rank and file in Congress backing the occasional moments of courage shown by Reid and Pelosi).

Mark our words, the Dems will go down to defeat in 2008 if they keep abandoning warriors for the Constitution and justice to stand alone as target practice for the right wing character assassination squad.

****************************************

We're "taking back America" for these losers???

You'd never know the Democrats are in control of both houses of Congress, given that the Republicans continue to control both the agenda and the outcomes.

How lame can you get?

Huron John

==========

Politicians are a cheap shot, John, why can't you blame the voters that elect them, or the alternative parties for nominating and campaigning at the local level?

More about the bird declines we discussed here several weeks ago, this doesn't just pertain to Florida, but everywhere in this country.

=============

Found many dead birds this past winter..  We live in a very rural area, so I figured it is either a virus or...

  the toxins from the wood-burning stoves, which can get pretty nasty around here with all the print, packaging, and who-knows-what-else they burn in those dirty, resin-coated stoves, choked of oxygen to slow down the burn.

The stoves in winter are one reason I want to move down to the central CA coast.

The only possible good thing to come from the Iraq war vote.....we saw that our party's policies were controlled by corporatist Democrats..if indeed some were Democrats.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1349

27.

Huron John
Tue, 06/19/07
10:24 am


You'd never know the Democrats are in control of both houses of Congress, given that the Republicans continue to control both the agenda and the outcomes.

How lame can you get?

>>> Every time I say it can't get worse, it does.....so I'm not going to say THAT any more.

Hi folks. This is Mike Cooper the communications intern at DFA.

 Was able to meet some of you at DemFest. The rest I will hopefully get to know in the near future. I'm going to be spending some time here on the blog every now and then - not in any form of cenorship or such - just to add to the conversation and to help with what ya'll like to do with this blog to meet any concerns or wishes.

 Also, I'll be working on some interviews with elected officials - mostly in congress - that DFA supported to get them on the record for their backers and followers on this site. Feel free to shoot any names of officals you'd like to see interviewed by us - and any questions you'd like to see addressed to my email: thecoopdog@aol.com . And I might try to incorporate some interviews with musical artists who are progressive and outraged into the blog. If that is something you'd like to see on here let me know and I'll work on that. Here is a sampling from a piece I did with Chuck D back in the spring for a hip-hop magazine:

Linda*in*SFNM
Tue, 06/19/07
10:53 am
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Now now.............musnt criticize...........remember, change is coming.............within our lifetime is  a matter to ponder however.

John wrote "You'd never know the Democrats are in control of both houses of Congress, given that the Republicans continue to control both the agenda and the outcomes. How lame can you get?"

I also see this as a problem. Democrats in Congress are not very trainable and are somewhat anarchic. They certainly don’t rally around issues in lockstep like Republicans, although I think this necessarily is a function of having a diverse, big tent party. If you have working people, less educated people, minorities, union employees, gay rights activists, environmentalists, anti-war militants, and choice proponents as members, there are going to be divergent points of view. This was the common complaint against the party in the 70's and 80's, when it was thought to be nothing more than an aggregate of polarizing, special interest voters who were at odds with the person on the street.

This tactic worked very well for the Republicans, who perpetrated the fraud that its coalition of wealthy industry captains and influence peddlers, joined with naive religious fundamentalists and social conservatives, reflected the zeitgeist of common Americans. It’s stupid, but it benefits from the advantage of having a wealthy, organized, and motivated core, Bush’s "base" and a cult-like group of zombie acolytes, transfixed by what they perceive to be the transcendent moral imperative of their political beliefs. It kind of creeps me out writing about it.

why can't you blame the voters that elect them,

__________________________________________________________________________

fred

Hi folks. This is Mike Cooper the communications intern at DFA.

...

I'm going to be spending some time here on the blog every now and then ... just to add to the conversation ...

+++

Mike -

Thanks for the value added.

Michael Ellis

==========

As former Sen. Sam Nunn said on Charlie Rose last night concerning the ending Nuclear proliferation, that we may not get to the top of the mountain, but my get high enough for my children or grandchildren to see the top of the mountain.

He also said that Reagan, as  president, was obsessed with a world free of nuclear weapons and "not a day went by" that it wasn' t on his mind. 

fred

============

Sure, mike, go ahead and blame me for all the problems of the last ten years, it's a crappy job but somebody's gotta do it.

FRED from OR
Tue, 06/19/07
10:16 am
_________________________________________________________________________

Yes, but Bush was also put in agan in 2004............this time without the "help" of Independents and Greens voting for Nader..................the problem is not with "us"........its with what the Democratic party has become...............plain and simple. is it "fixable"? Im not sure..but it seems many like it the way it is and will continue to be.....................

Politicians are a cheap shot, John, why can't you blame the voters that elect them, or the alternative parties for nominating and campaigning at the local level?

The voters elected them to do a job. They have failed miserably to do that job--That's not the voters' fault. Voters support alternative parties because the Democrats pee on their base, then extpect them to rally around them.

You know what? voters are beginning to get it.

FRED from OR
Tue, 06/19/07
11:16 am
__________________________________________________________________________

Actually the rest of my post got chopped off..............agreed the electorate

Hey coopdog!!

Well, i missed DemFest due to a series of misfortunes - but hey 'i will survive'.
I don't think you'll get a lot of traction here with the racial tact, myself being from the focal point of such thinking. Even here progressives and indies are quite over that being a rallying point. Georgia itself, even under Rethug rule and mentality, have many many appointed and elected officials of non-white origin.
Maybe you should look over at Sheri and realize something... qualification and conviction.

Yes, it's experience and upholding the needs/desires of your citizenry(or the ones you wish to represent next) that leads to having a good 'street cred'.
... not that one should be elected simply because they are 'non-white male'.

It may be hard to believe, but there are a lot of good white males.
P.S. it would help if Barrack wasn't a corporatist liar.

John Edwards is terrific.

Michael Ellis

===========

thanks, for a minute, thought you were looking down on me

Huron John

========

Run, John, Run,  - you da man

Excuses are like A-holes: Everybody has at least one

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-madrak/excuses-excuses_b_52627.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The new Democratic-led Congress is drawing the ire of voters upset with its failure to quickly deliver on a promise to end the Iraq war.

This is reflected in polls that show Congress -- plagued by partisan bickering mostly about the war -- at one of its lowest approval ratings in a decade. Surveys find only about one in four Americans approves of it.

"I understand their disappointment," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "We raised the bar too high."

In winning control of Congress from President George W. Bush's Republicans last November, Democrats told voters they would move swiftly to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. But they now say voters must understand they need help from Republicans to clear procedural hurdles, override presidential vetoes and force Bush to change course

It's not just that we want the war to be over, like, yesterday. We want to see you trying. We want to see the Democrats, again and again and again, tying this war to Bush's tail and making him suffer the consequences. We want you and every other Democrat to take every available opportunity to bring up this war, to denounce it, to say it's unspeakable and to remind voters just whose bright idea it was. If you're on Tim Russert's show and he says, "Nice weather we've been having," the correct Democratic response is, "I only wish all those soldiers George Bush sent to Iraq were here to see it. Maybe it'll still be nice when they come home to get fitted for their new prosthetic legs."

And when you get enough of the public riled up, yes, even the Republicans will go along. Because Republican voters will be calling their congressmen, too, demanding we get out of Iraq.

Don't you get it? When you reduce this war to procedural tactics and getting the Republicans to agree with you, you have already lost the fight for public support. This isn't about collegiality, Harry. It's about the maimed bodies of troops and civilians, the stench of human flesh in the desert heat.

Not that you'll listen, but you can't say no one ever told you:

The voters in the last election absolutely did their job by overwhelming rejecting the party of lies, war, and corruption and giving the alternative a chance to make changes.

In no way can the voters be blamed if the Democratic Party fails to deliver.

Time for us to step up  or be shot down.

The voters in the last election absolutely did their job by overwhelming rejecting the party of lies, war, and corruption....

===========

That sounds a bit too glorifying of Democrats - the voters probably saw voting Democratic as the lesser of two evils in most cases.

Phil wrote "In no way can the voters be blamed if the Democratic Party fails to deliver."

I am reminded of the first term representative from suburban Philadelphia, Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, who despite an electoral victory in her district by a fraction of a percent, changed her opposition to the 1993 Clinton tax increase to a vote in favor. She was summarily voted out of office in the next election by her constituents.

It is truly a simple task to judge those who must make the decisions on which their offices depend, based on their perception of the wants and needs of their district, from the relative safety of the blog bleachers. I have no problems with the disagreements. I tend to disagree myself. It’s the spiteful calls for ouster, like Ms. Margolies-Mezvinsky’s, or third party options, that I find less compelling.

Phil Specht
Tue, 06/19/07
11:34 am

BINGO ! ! ! !

32.

Mike Cooper

Well, that is EXCELLENT news to hear. Thank you Mike.

Chuck D and his message went over real well here last week about media monopolies.

Today there is a new group meeting at our State House about getting Corporations grip out of our government.


_________________________

Mike you can start by asking all those candidates who promised to end the war, and when it came time for their votes, they did NOT. Starting waaaaaayyyy back to the first Dean Dozen candidates,....all the way up to the recent DFA listers.

bbl

47.

Phil Specht


And they surely can't claim to not have HEARD FROM US.




bbl

In doing so, we align with conservatives and libertarians like Justin Raimondo, Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan, Jude Wanniski, and the other contributors to antiwar.com and The American Conservative, who are strict nationalists who espouse nonintervention and who, in fact, not only reject Bush and his neoconservative values, but any human rights or humanitarian agenda, which they regard as barely disguised imperialism.

This may not bother some, but there is also the potential that we adopt this position by sacrificing the contributions of liberals on a whole range of social issues, in favor of antiwar advocates like those above who reject the social safety net and many other aspects of the social compact. We take this risk on a issue regarding foreign policy, something that has is not part of the DFA mission statement. Instead, it is effectively being inserted by fiat. I think it would be more responsible to consider that constituents in Michigan, Iowa and Illinois, to name just a few, may have an interest in returning lawmakers who are among the most liberal in their caucus, despite disagreements or even misgivings about certain foreign policy positions they have.

I don't hold a bad view of Democrats in Congress. It goes back to the joke of stopping a charging elephant. Yet in this case you hae to find the credit card before you can take it away.

 I think the new oversight has been impressive. You have to remember that the Gopers got away with so much because they had a lock on the Guminit. Bush and Congress locked in a yin/yang of corruption.

I'm impressed to think that the Gopers actually believe that emails can disappear like magic. This shows genuine fear that arose from their belief in the permanent majority. Now they have to run out the clock, but to what end? They know that serious criminal charges await at the end of this.  Perhaps stuff that's actionable in The Hague.

 The process will continue regardless of their position. I've wondered since Bush "took" office what their endgame was. Bush needs a lame excuse to declare martial law, or he and lot's of his friends could be looking at some very hard time.

Does anyone have a third way that I'm not seeing? 

55. Subway, what the Democrats have given us since Jauary is smoke and mirrors. They have made some noise, but they have accomplished exactly nothing of consequence.

The whole Bush crime family is still intact, breaking the law with impunity, and giving us the finger in the process. Rove, Gonzales, Cheney, and other Bushco thugs, continue to flout the law and the will of the American people, because they know that the Democrats are not going to do a damn thing about it.

Democrats who speak out are trampled by the Republican slime machine, and left lying in the gutter by their leaders, who have been reduced to  feckless, drooling cyphers.

And the majority of liberals/progressives zip around in their SUVs, going about their daily routine oblivious to the carnage that is going on, to the systematic dismantling of our once-proud Democracy.

And yes Tom, War Party members like Levin, Durkin and Harkin should have their noses rubbed in the mess they've created, and which they refuse to help people like Russ Feingold and Dennis Kucinich clean up.

We will leave Iraq with all our dreams in pieces, and it will be left to Iraqis themselves - men like Daoud Mousa, carrying the grief of his son's death with him for ever - to create a new country out of the pain and sorrow we leave behind for them. 6/18

John wrote "War Party members like Levin, Durkin and Harkin should have their noses rubbed in the mess they've created, and which they refuse to help people like Russ Feingold and Dennis Kucinich clean up."

In a big tent party, you can find more than one prevailing view:

Democratic Candidates Moving Left; Candidates Rally Liberal Base to Win Nomination, Risk General Election Support by Rick Klein and Teddy Davis of ABC News

"In recent months, virtually the entire Democratic field has tacked left -- not just on the Iraq War, but on health care, taxes, energy issues and gay rights. In each of those areas, much of the field is standing to the left of where Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., stood in 2004, when President Bush lampooned Kerry as a 'Massachusetts liberal.'

" . . . .

"The shift has been most striking on Iraq, where none of the Democrats support President Bush's current strategy. In sharp contrast to 2004, when several candidates remained supportive of the war mission, the disagreements among the Democratic presidential candidates now extend only to how best to bring an end to the war.

" . . . .

"'Lots of people say, "I want a Democrat," but when they see the particulars, they say, "I don't want that Democrat,"' said Jeffrey Berry, a political science professor at Tufts University. 'The thing that's amazing about the Democrats is that they could still snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. The major Democrats are all now well to the left of the median voter.'

" . . . .

"Berry said the move to the left is in a broad sense a return to the Democratic party's roots, since the various interest groups that hold sway over the party have traditionally wanted a more liberal take on the major issues of the day.

"But the candidates must balance the need to tap into activists' energy with the necessity of finding common ground with political independents.

"'They'll get the Democratic base to vote for whoever the Democrats nominate, but they have to win over the independents,' Berry said. "They're going to have to resist some of this leftward tug.'"

John is getting a little soft on the war when he mentions that Levin, Durbin and Harkin are refusing to help people like Feingold end our involvement.  Bill Richardson has criticized John Edwards for his support of Reid-Feingold because of its loopholes, which would allow the president to keep troops behind for training Iraqis and protecting other soldiers.

Time to junk War Party member Feingold.  Say it now, "Richardson is terrific."

Thoughts, questions, comments?  There's a new thread.

43. Deaniac

Was sorry not to see you there :-(

Tom Bearse

==========

Some good thoughts there, Tom.  Ideals are good but you cannot throw out the baby with the bathwater, however painful, over one issue, or even two issues. 

Many on this blog speak as if leaving Iraq ASAP (with or without a timeline) is a fantasy panacea afterwhich everything will fall into place and have a happy ending, like a Hollywood movie, or at least, won't get worse.  This is purely wishful thinking.

Most experts of all disciplines agree that, as far as strategic planning goes, getting out of Iraq responsibly woud be 100 times harder than it was getting into Iraq, as irresponsibly as Bush and the Neocons did.  And most of those experts also speculate that most scenarios of the power vacuum we would leave - at the present time - could easily spin out of control to a wider regional conflict.  Nobody denies our invasion created this mess.

And IMO it is incumbent upon the Democratic Party to maintain the integrity of our country by exiting responsibly and promoting the international restoration of that Country.

Having said that,  I might add that  I am in no way suggesting any kind of  military "victory" as any part of a any definition of "responsible exit."