The best way to keep the 2 national parties accountable, and turn the discourse towards the substantive instead of the frivilous issue distorting attacks of the other party, is to break the 2-party system. The best, only way to do that is to start by electing local candidates from alternative parties. People must get acclimated to the idea of third parties locally before they will be able to compete in national elections. No 3rd party will ever stand a chance when they are heard from only every four years as a novelty candidate. First local then House then Senate.

People are paying attention now, like nothing sice I've been born. Thanks to the unbridled radical conservatism allowed by Bush and a republican congress, it has been demonstrated many times that their rhetoric doesn't mesh with their actions and their promises don't match with their results. The hero worship is receding and reality is taking over. The more people pay attention, the less the smears work because they can see through them. The less the smears work, the more *shrill* they have been getting, which turns people off even more and makes them pay greater attention, and the more attention people pay to what happens vs. the rhetoric, the worse things get for the GOP.

He's very unlikely to be unseated but WI can surprise you sometimes.

Instead of the liberal blogosphere showing its first cracks, I would propose that instead the liberal and Democratic blogosphere(s) will just no longer be referred to interchangeably.

Change you can ____________

i know it was sarcastic, but 'stooping to their level' even if only to force Joe S. into a much deserved eating of his own words, just encourages the filth police.

back when the fleeting expletives fcc lawsuit was rejected, the fcc press release (link below) contained orders of magnitude more profanity than the incidents in question

What a difficult position Mukasey was in, to admit something is illegal that your boss did. Let's just say it's abhorrent, but not judge its legality. Of course it never hurts to add that it helps keep us safe and we only did it to really bad guys that want to hurt you and your kids. 9/11

The bipartisanship described only applies until 2006, after that the Republican minority was extremely obstructionist, even filibustering bills they supported to make Democrats look ineffectual. I think they set some records for the number of filibusters.

The Democrats in Congress aside, I hope and would like to think that the bipartinsanship that Obama talks about is referring to the tone and substance of the discourse he hopes to engender in Congress. My hope is that he is talking about changing the debate from frivolities, distractions, terrorist baiting, and wedge issues into something more substantive. I won't hold my breath but might cross my fingers.

I'd say the Bush administration was quite concerned with outcomes and not particularly concerned with principles

I think they were quite concerned with principles. Some of their principles were: (with some overlap of course)

-Go to war with Iraq/Create a permanent state of war

-Spread the national wealth to as many cronies and supporters as they can

-Unitary Executive

-Business should have a free hand to do anything with no government interference

-Beat the Democrats

-Take the gloves off

-The administration is not to be bothered when eating dinner or on vacation

They stick rigidly to those principals, still claiming victory is on the way in Iraq, still handing out money like it's going out of style, etc etc.

Their concept of principals is different than what people commonly think of when speaking of principles, like morality and the good of the nation. Bush had principles, but not Principles. He had pragmatism as far as his principles were concerned, but not Pragmatism as far as the general national interest.

What most infuriated me about the Bush reign was that he, and his republican cohorts, seemed to habitually let their ideology trump all pragmatism. It's why they doled out tax cuts during a two-front war and brought deregulation to a rediculous extreme.

Obama seems to have a more traditional shortcoming in that his pragmatism more often than not overrides his principles (at least his implied principles). His anti-Iraq speech everybody loves him for had the line 'I don't hate all wars, just dumb wars.' So anyone with the impression that Obama was anti-war, pacifist, or had an inclination to be restrained in our military adventures beyond what is practically feasible was doing some wishful thinking.

I hear a lot that Obama is a centrist, consensus minded, pragmatic politician. Americans love us our wars and he is well aware of that.

One we need more of, the other less.

Real world pragmatism- making conservative judgments with an eye to long term effects and consequences, is sorely lacking in the US gov.

Political pragmatism- the kind Democrats get a lot of heat for in this blog, is overabundant. Including but not limited to pandering, triangulation, and blowing with the political winds