Some of the letters already posted made me wonder if some people won't be pleased no matter what. Argue if you want about whether making the Republicans actually debate if they insist on a filibuster is the best strategy, but there's no denying that this time the Democrats stood up for themselves. They showed the spine those of us in the base are always asking them to. To watch them defend their position win or lose and not settle again for the best the Republicans will give, and then keep yelling, makes no sense to me. I don't even care if this was just for show. Winning over the public, with the threat of what happens next election day, meets my definition of fighting back. Probably little makes the GOP tremble more than the thought of the public figuring out who is really stopping anything from getting done.

If the name Peter Hoekstra, the ranking Republican and former chairman, looks familiar, think back to last year. He and Rick Santorum were the ones who announced they had found WMDs in Iraq which turned out to be gas shells that were old during the Kuwait war. http://thinkprogress.org/2006/06/21/santorum-wmd/

Want to bet he has a lot to hide in that report? More evidence of delusion if nothing else.

Perhaps someone else recalls for sure. I think there was one group advocating for the disabled that was funded by the touchscreen manufacturers, or by some other conservative interest, and this was the group advocating for touchscreens. I understand blind voters wanting to be able to do this themselves, but how do they know their votes were correctly recorded this way than any other way? And no one using touchscreens can see for sure that their vote was correctly recorded and the tally is correct. No disrespect to the blind, but that's a tiny issue by comparison to our elections being rigged.

Dennis Kucinich did make hte joke about there being no one to his left, but that wasn't at al the end of his response. He answered the question about the candidate who, as expected, was placed at the opposite end of the stage, Mike Gravel. He pointed out something no one in the press, including Michael Scherer, has take n the trouble to mention, that Gravel played a courageous role in ending the Vietnam war. Kucinich didn't have time for detail, but he might have been referring to when Gravel entered the Pentagon Papers in the Congressional Record. Kucinich gave the most substantive answer to the question.

By the way, Mr. Scherer, if you could have been bothered to actually listen, Kucinich explained what he meant by the global warming/global warring connection, about how ours wars are tied to our need for oil, and how war is sucking up resources that could go into alternative energy. His phrase is actually a clever and concise way to put it.

Political realignments happen quickly only in hindsight. THe "Reagan Democrats" gave Reagan a chance in 1980, but they weren't hooked on conservatism until 1984. FDR didn't exactly win in a landslide in 1932 despite the obvious utter failure of conservatism, but he got a chance, and the realignment happened as his programs kicked in, and I recall pundits in the 70's and 80's still talking about the FDR coalition. The were talking about it ending, but come on, it held together 40 years! I think we're in a realignment now. Last year's elections didn't start it, but showed it had started. Democrats get a chance. The Gulf Coast might still vote Republican next year, but if Democrats do much better on the reconstruction than the Republicans have so far done, some red areas might turn deep purple with occasional blue patches. Even if the Gulf Coast is too culturally red to change, I still think the conservative era has ended, and the GOP is in danger of becoming a party purely of the Southeast and outer ring suburbs. If I can boldly make a prediction, I see a narrow win next year (especially with Republicans controlling so much of the voting process) with a landslide in 2012, assuming Democrats don't seriously screw up.

Hang on. About Snow's statement, "Now we have a situation where there is an attempt to do something that's never been done in American history, which is to assail the concept of executive privilege, which hails back to the administration of George Washington and in particular to use criminal contempt charges against the White House chief of staff and the White House legal counsel," someone correct me if I'm wrong. Wasn't the term "executive privilege" first used by Nixon? It might be true this is the first contempt citation against the White House chief of staff and the White House legal counsel, but there are precedents for contempt against executive branch officials, including Rita Lavelle in 1983.

Glenn, forgive the off-topic post, but I thought you might know. When did the term "executive privilege" first come into use? I thought Nixon invented it, but when Tony Snow said it went back to George Washington, I realized I don't have a source, or rather I think Snow lied, but I can't prove it.

My concern about a special prosecutor on perjury suspicions is that this is exactly the stall the bushies are looking for. We already have seen they have no compunctions about stalling investigations, and their strategy on investigations is to run out the clock. They will delay appointing a special prosecutor, and then construct his investigation, while using the excuse of an ongoing investigation to refuse to testify or disclose documents. I'd rather Congress moves directly to impeachment, starting that first if they insist on a special prosecutor as well, and let the criminal prosecution wait until either impeachment fails or Gonzales is gone.