Thanks, PLL - yes, I know there are still liberal Jews - it's just that you don't often hear about them, other than in the pages of The Nation, The American Prospect, or Mother Jones. Also the blogs: Altercation is a great place to go for clear-eyed analysis. The real "liberal media", in other words, which few others than over-educated liberals (and progressives) even know exists. And let's not get into Heeb magazine ("The New Jew Review")...

And thanks, Bee - I'm also aware of the Arabic-speaking Jews who live in Israel. Many of them feel they're not treated much better than their brethren, the Moslem Arabs, and that they have more in common with them than with the white Israelis.

What I'm griping about is how there is no debate about the Palestine problem. There's the ultras, screaming how Israel is entitled to do absolutely anything, because of some Nietzschian imperative, and if anyone so much as lets out a peep, they're "anti-semites" and want to kill all the Jews.

And the mainstream media fully support the screamers. Even progressive Ed Schultz is inexcusably rude to people who haven't drunk the Zionist koolade, and he's generally pretty respectful and tolerant, as far as radio talkers go.

The Palestinian Arabs ( all Arabs) are just wogs, a thousand of which (not "whom", but "which") are barely worth a fingernail paring off of a Jew. They've been saying it since the 1967 war. One might think that, in the midst of the civil rights revolution in the United States, this statement would have made Americans uncomfortable, but it didn't then, and it doesn't now - because that's all we get to hear.

I'd like to start hearing more from liberal Jews. I shouldn't have to go digging for this information - it ought to be out there, on TV, on the radio, and in the magazines and newspapers.

Well, this may be part of it. I've thought for a long time now that the wingnuts have gotten away with so much largely because what they did was so over the top. I mean, you've got to be some tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorist to think that:

• The US government is not only torturing suspects, but has an archipelago of secret torture installations outside the country that they fly suspects to, in luxury business jets
• The Vice President, once thought of as simply a spare, actually constitutes a Fourth Branch of government, with characteristics of the legislative and executive branches, and is superior to the other three branches
• 363 tons of US $100 bills, shrink wrapped, palletized and totalling $12,000,000,000.00 was flown out to Iraq AND LOST - and nobody cares

Well, there's no point in going on and on. The apparent brain malfunctions are just part of the same story. Unbelievable. And therefore, not believed.

Wells' voice cracked and he spoke his final words through sobs. "Give him back to me! Give him back!" He rushed back to his chair at the head of the defense table, covered his face and then stared at the floor.

What is it with these bawling Republicans? They cry when they're caught doing wrong (Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham), they cry when they lose elections (George H.W. Bush, Robert Dole), they cry on the lecture circuit (Ruby-Ridge man, the afore-mentioned Bob Dole), and now they cry for their clients.

Degrading, yes - but the money's good.

Digby has lately been referring to the Republicans as "the Baby Party" on his blog, Hullabaloo.:

They now look to Daddy Government not to discipline the children, but to check under the bed for them every night, reassure them that the boogeyman won't hurt them and then read them a nice bedtime story about spreading freedom and democracy. It turns out that underneath all this swaggering bravado, the Republicans aren't the Daddy party --- they're the baby party.

And they cry like it, too.

Spread the phrase. Here are some examples:

• "Rep. John Boehner of the Baby Party"
• "the Baby Party blocked a vote on Iraq for the third time"
• "Democratic leaders are meeting with the Baby Party"
• "Yet another Baby Party official was indicted today"

... you get the drill. It's catchy, and has the added advantage of being true.

I'm getting increasingly tired of hearing people go back to that tired old November 2002 vote on the "Authorization for Use of Military Force." We will NEVER vote for him/her, because he/she voted wrong! We won't vote for him/her until we hear an APOLOGY! No, THAT apology wasn't good enough! We want to see him/her GROVEL! LOWER!! YOU CALL THAT GROVELING?

Things were really different in the fall of 2002. The non-stop whining about how America was traumatized by "911" was still going full blast. There was a mid-term election. Democrats who had bent over backwards to support Bush's Afghanistan invasion were being tarred as treasonous, because ... well, there actually wasn't any good reason, but if you say "treasonous Democrat" enough times on the Screaming Head shows, it sticks, and that's all you need.

Even more importantly, the Screaming Heads were repeating the Bush Administration lies and spin about "mushroom clouds" and making us think chlorine gas, a critical part of every civilized economy, was a "Weapon of Mass Destruction" that threatened the very existence of the United States and the Free World. Democratic Senators and Congressmen were being lied to, consistently and repeatedly, by Cheney/Bush and their spokesmen, about the evidence for and level of the threat.

In these more innocent times, who among our elected Democrats would have believed an Administration would lie so completely, thoroughly, and shamelessly about something with such an impact on the nation? Not enough of them, obviously. And the mundane calculations of the elections had to factor in.

A lot of Democrats made mistakes. Most of them are smarter now. A lot of us aren't.

Grow up, get over it, and move on. Please.