I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure that this was Harry Reid's call (and not Nancy Pelosi or Howard Dean or someone else such as Joe Lieberman)

But the so-called "Democratic Response" Tuesday night to George Bush's parade of lies before the nation is indicative of just how totally incompetent and braindead the Democratic Party leadership still is.

From www.RawStory column "No Tommorrow" by John Steinberg.

And just think, Robert Byrd, Kent Conrad, Joe Lieberman, etc. all sought & help made it happen.

So far I have not heard that any Democrat in the Senate has publically stated that they will actual stand-up (as if they possessed backbones) and initiate a Fillibuster to block the appointment of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The level of deceit, recklessness, incompetence, and indifference to the things that really matter by the Bush Administration is so stunning (to the point of surrealistic) that it is hard to know at any given minute what to focus on:   Osama Bin Laden still remains alive? Unprovoked Invasions on defenseless nations? Torture of innocents? Loss of Civil Liberties? Wiretapping? Lethal Revenge against Whistleblowers? The mindless, barbaric Murder of 100,000s of Iraqi's (and calling that "freedom"), .. etc.

Let's see if the "I" word is used....

I dont' get it.

First, you had the Senate rebuking Bush, amid reports of illegal government surveillance & wiretapping,
and not going along with an extention on the Patriots Act.

Then, just a few hours later -- they all happily agree to the 6-month Exentention of the Patriot Act
and have apparently forgetton all about the civil liberty & freedom abuses made by Bush.  
No problem after all, it's all good. ( -?- )

Why did they just cave in like that?

Yes, there was actually a day when you could use the words fighting and Democrats in the same sentence.

Actually, you could have done so all throughout the 20-year Franklin Roosevelt era that had once created a consensus within the Country around progressive values.

Fighting Democrats certainly also applied to John & Robert Kennedy who looked the U.S. War Machine & CIA in the eye and did not blink (both advancing a withdrawal in Vietnam and a peaceful resolution to the Cuban Missile Crisis).

But was 1992, really that long ago?
We had fighting democrats then too.

I'm still not sure why we then got away from that and retreated down this path of 2000, 2002, 2004, the whole DLC-Lieberman thing.  

Maybe it's time for a quick review:

A lot of Democrats are still afraid to come out openly and clearly against the unprovoked Iraq Invasion & Military Occupation.

The appeal of the tag-line: "the World is better off without Saddam Hussein" seems to freeze the thought process along with abstract promises of "Democracy" and "freedom" (even as we are caught in episodes of random torture that would make Hussein himself blush).

Jesus was part of the Micheal Moore crowd -- a nutty, longhaired, hippy, liberal, anti-war, peacenick, Jew, who sympathized & gave aid & comfort to the "enemy" and who some say was possibly French.  

Reporter Viveca Novak is coming to the rescue of the White House to provide "testimony", at the urging of Karl Rove's defense attorney, to Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that will clear Rove of any "wrongdoing" in the Valerie Plame leak case.
[ It was Rove's attorney who, in fact, used this same Novak information to fool Fitzgerald into originally backing off completely from indiciting Rove earlier. ]

Tony Trupiano:  Remember that name.

I hope this guys wins!  He provides the example of how an opposition Party representative should think and should talk out in the public square and what their true civic responsibilities are.

You want backbone? Forget Howard Dean ...

This is the backbone man!
Vote for Tony Trupiano!


[article link: http://www.impeachpac.org/... ]

Former Senator and Democratic 2004 Presidential candidate publically sets the record straight today about the deliberate deception and filtering of intelligence data used to fool Congress into supporting an unjustified War.

While the fact that the Bush administration deliberately lied should not be a surprise to anyone by now, it is very important to get an official statement from the former chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence himself that Bush and Tenant knowingly produced a false report for Congress, and, that the Democratic members of the Senate who did vote for the Iraq resolution, did so with falsified information as their reference.

Thus, the groundwork for Impeachment has been clearly established.

Article link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Bob Woodward's public attitude towards the exposure of Valerie Plame & Brewster Jennings has been that this is just some unimportant nuisance, Fitzgerald is the "bad guy", and that the White House is well within their rights (no crime, no treason, no one to blame).

I always thought this attitutde was very strange.

But now, that he has testified in Fitzgerald's investigation, it seems to me that Woodward may have volunteered to become a firewall to help protect Bush and his criminal Iraq War Group.

He has provided testimony that attempts to exhonerate I. Lewis Libby from any wrongdoing (being the first Bush official to disclose Plame's background).   He also seems to be deflecting attention away from Rove, the White House, and the idea that the breech of security was anything important.

I believe Woodward is trying to protect Libby, Rove, Cheney, Bush, Rice, & Hadley by lying and sabatoge the Fitzgerald investigation by attributing it to just some low-level flack.

One of the things that was a surprising during 2004, was just how steadfast John Edwards was in supporting the Iraq War vote and Invasion.  

He stuck to that position in the face of considerable criticism and, unlike John Kerry, generally did not even try to elaborate on it or clarify it or contextualize it or identify what specific criteria motivated it.

The Republicans brought forward a wholly undemocratic, unAmerican bill in the Senate that PASSED thanks to the votes of five ( 5 ) Democratic Senators.

The bill says if the U.S. Government, with either zero evidence, warrants, or legal discovery process ever having been required,   --simply declares you to be an "enemy combatant"--    you then are locked-up for the rest of your entire life (or worse) with no legal rights or capacity to ever challenge whatsoever (and also obviously subject to torture)!

I don't know if any of you saw   John "George Bush has led this Country with moral clarity" McCain   on the Larry King show on Thursday, but if you didn't, there he was again out peddling some book about so-called "character" while simultaneously regurgitating the same old disproven & fraudulent talking-points right from the mouth of Dick Cheney and the Bush administration school of unnecessary mass-murder.

McCain's appearance could be summed-up as follows:

-Iraq War good
-Saddam had WMDs (even though nobody found them) and was a serious threat (with the weapons that he did not even have).
-The Christian Right has not gone too far (separation of Church & State unimportant)

Let's get smart here.

Paul Hacket is the very best candidate and best hope and prospect to actually win the U.S. Senate seat for the State of Ohio.

Forget Sherrod Brown for chrissakes!  He may be a nice man, but winning is the key issue here!

Paul Hacket carried various counties where John Kerry had lost by as much as 30 percentage points.  He nearly pulled off a win in a heavily Republican part of the State.

Now that phenomenon does not and will not extend to just any old Democratic candidate!!  Wake-up!

You cannot just substitute a Sherrod Brown there and get those same results!

Why does Bill Maher continually give a television platform to the hateful, soul-less, torture-advocating, serial-liar & propaganda-spewing Ann Coulter?

It is bad enough that right-wing cronies like: Sean Hanity, Bill O'Reilly, and Chris Mathews do this all the time  -- but why then does Bill Maher, a man who professes his political independence, continually treat her as if she is a serious person that has some possible credible or valueable viewpoint?