You'd have a great point, except that I recall that not only are John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court, but that Democrats let three scumbags on powerful appeals courts in a "deal" to keep the "filibuster," so they could use it to stop people like...Alito from getting on the Supreme Court.

Your corrected analogy should therefore be that Democrats DID NOT play a keep away defense, rather, they just sat on the bench and were accused of playing an illegal/boring keep away defense. So while I'll agree the media is completely corporate controlled and will never give Democrats a fair shake, I'm not exactly going to agree that all the Dems need is better PR.

Nerdnam:

MoveOn cannot reach the middle because the middle is not listening to MoveOn. While I understand your point of view, you misunderstand that online organizing’s best strategy (at least the MoveOn type) is to motivate it's base so the base can talk to the middle (believe it or not, preaching to the choir and getting the choir to preach to others works online the same way it does in church). Being provocative fires up your base, making them feel a little righteous; this helps them speak up when someone else in the elevator starts lauding the war.

mcintire78:

The media decided to make MoveOn the story. While it could have been predicted by MoveOn that things would turn out this way, this is the case with any truth. We are so awash in bullshit backed by the media that any truth told by a large or respected source will draw jeers and indignation (e.g. anyone of stature who makes charges of war crimes; calls for single payer healthcare; demands fair public trials for those accused of "terrorism"; takes pre-emptive war off the table -- all of these things are anathema to all politicians that are treated as credible by the media, including Democratic front runners). So I applaud MoveOn for telling the truth here (yes this general is betraying us: he's lying and he's complicit in an ongoing war crime). Maybe the rhyme method was a little lame, but that's a small bone to pick. More people need to speak up about the truth without apology. We need to purge the media class who look liberal in some light, but are at heart insects for the establishment colony – people like Klein, Broder, Russert, even many reporters and commentators at NPR and the NYT’s – and the only way to do that is to force them to expose themselves by printing ads like MoveOn’s.

Obviously it will take more than MoveOn, as they can be marginalized. But if enough people start rejecting anyone who refuses to acknowledge that our actions in Iraq crimes against humanity, things will change over time (though you have to be ready to be called crazy – just like all the people of the past we worship now after the safety blanket of history makes it okay).

Leonard:

Earlier this century, these four states and municipalities attempted to ban ATM surcharges. Sure, you can call that unwarranted interference into the workings of the free market, if you like. But one also suspects that the politicians involved were representing the wishes of their constituencies. If the people are annoyed by bank fees, in a democracy they have the right to express their ire by electing politicians who pass laws that order banks to behave differently.

Well, not exactly, at least not in this country as it is currently operated. District and appellate court decisions struck down the ATM surcharge bans.

What people should start noting publicly is that the lawyers and judges battling and overruling the states-rights arguments are the hypocrites from the Federalist Society and other states-rights outfits -- places that backed federalism only before their foxes bought out the federal henhouse. This is pretty solid evidence that the right-wing movement is an intellectual sham. The only consistent factor among their enterprises is who wins. You have the know how and background to point this out.

I meant everyone has the know how to get this out. I didn't mean to sound as though I was addressing Leonard, who I thank for this great post.

The first and foremost reason I'm outraged is that legislatures should have the right to pass laws that don't violate the constitution -- and I don't think regulating ATM fees comes close (especially given how thinly our Constitution protects more obvious and basic rights under these same judges).

But with regard to the ATM fees themselves, they save the banks tons of money for having to employ far less bank tellers. Do you remember how many tellers used to work in banks? Banks used to look like the ticket counter of an airline in its hub. They were built to save money for the banks ("and therefore the customer!") -- and they took government incentives to set them up based on this principle.