They are an example to this cynic that the beauty of people power isn't dead and given the proper impetus we freedom and tolerance lovers as a great people still possess a wealth of untapped power even as corporate hegemony toils to wear us down and divide us.

In the years to come we musn't forget the ties that bind us and the strength we can wield as a group against the forces of oppression everywhere.

Are we on the cusp of great changes in our wicked world? Millions march in America to assert the rights of immigrants. Tends of thousands march in Bangkok forcing a fascist thief of a Prime Minister to step down without a shot being fired. Silvio Berlusconi looks as if he may be getting the boot. French students and workers dig their heels in to secure their standards of living.

Perhaps there is a way to channel all of this momentum into bigger and more important victories. What's the next step?

This was a great informative article that you scuttled at the very end with the inane "And then, presumably, vote Democratic," comment.

Did Michelle Malkin help you write that?

We haven't lost Tim Grieve have we? I love your writing Farhad, but I hold a special place in my heart for the wit and wisdom of Mr. Grieve.

Please tell us that he'll be back soon - better then ever!

...about someone for whom I don't have a great deal of sympathy.

I'm afraid that this article comes off as a propaganda piece sponsored by Friends of Joe. I'm not accusing Shapiro of being on the take - I am certain that he is not - but this piece is difficult to stomach on its face.

Particularly egregious is what appears to be a concerted effort on somebody's part to recast Lieberman's apparent close relationship with Bush as the product of a Rovesque dirty trick. Is that what Shapiro is trying to say? Was the SOTU embrace and kiss a craven, predestined politically calculated move by Rove via Bush to discredit Lieberman within his own party? Walter - if you are reading this - is that what you were saying there?

The 100% fair and just political reality is that Lieberman has lost the support of the far-left in his party where he at one time, at least (2000) nominally had all of our support. If Lieberman wanted us in his corner he could have earned it. There is nothing selfish about pointing out that he absolutely failed to do so. If enforced respect/deference to the President is Lieberman's genuine position vis-a-vis Bush then more power to him for having strong convictions. Most of us on the far left disagree and Lieberman will suffer the consequences of that. That's politics - it isn't hatred or a silly game.

Salon: I would enjoy reading a response to these comments from Shapiro and/or Lieberma himself.

Do you think the fact that you were wearing leather pants and in a gay bar might have contributed to the misunderstanding?

I left the East Bay in the early 90s to return to Massachusetts at 24 after 6 years at Berkeley and working in the area afterwards. My reasons for leaving were complicated, however most of them involved family. It was very clear to me at the time, however, that the violence in the area was a factor - a big factor. Not that I feared being a victim of the violence myself - me, middle-class and white, living on Albany Hill. The East Bay felt like my "space" and being forced to regularly confront the sort of violence described in this article in my own space was frightening and depressing. Unsettling. In particular I had to ask myself if I wanted my children to grow up in this environment. The East Bay of the early 90s experienced the Bosn's Locker massacre, a random shooting in the middle of the day by teenagers of a family in Richmond who turned their van around in the wrong parking lot - and countless drug related homicides. Some college friends awoke one night to a loud bang only to discover an execution-style killing on their back porch. How can anyone endure confronting this on a near daily basis? It's difficult enough seeing a pimp shoot a hooker on San Pablo on your way to work in the morning. I can't imagine how difficult it must be when the pimp and hooker are you neighbors, your cousins, your schoolmates - your friends.

Moving back to rural coastal Massachusetts radically changed my "space" and in the ensuing years I think I fooled myself into believing that things had gotten better for the poor and disenfranchised in the East Bay and in ghettos everywhere. I was comfortable in that illusion.

It takes stories like this - along with a hard look at the poverty in New Orleans revealed by Katrina - to shatter this sort of illusion.

He's only 24... Imagine how much he'll be able to steal once he's got a few more years working as a Republican operative under his belt!

Conservative pride.

I remember a certain Democrat Presidential candidate in 2004 who was relentlessly mocked for his "Frenchness," and here we've got the Cheney's swilling down Perrier. It should also be noted that when Cheney shot the old man in the face, he did so with a $2800 Italian shotgun.

There appears to be at least one example of his plagiarism in the conservative magazine National Review. If true his actions cannot simply be dismissed as a college prank/mistake.

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2006/3/23/181857/404/136#c136

Are all his appearances like this?