I think we have learned something valuable here. Even moderate politicians calculate that if they take a stand and declaim "for our freedom and the Constitution", and their opponent yells back "you're empowering the terrorists!", the politicos believe that the latter will resonate, and the former hold no sway. I fear that in more than half the Congressional constituencies in America (ironically, the ones least likely to be attacked by terrorists) they are right. This has become a battle of fear versus principle, and principle is losing in the White House, Congress, the Media, and large segments of the electorate (only the Courts have taken an occasional stand for principle). I now see the 2006 Midterm elections as a vote against failure, not a vote for anything.

CarolynC makes a good point. But I think that the analog we face today is one that Germans experienced in the period 1866-1871. The main opposition to Bismarck and those who wanted a united Germany under Prussian control were the Liberals, mostly middle-class men from business, academia, the commercial class, especially in northern Germany. When confronted with the success of Bismarck's wars of unification, the Liberals split. The old-line Liberals remained, committed to a British-style representative government, maybe even a republic. The bigger bunch, however, transformed themselves into "National Liberals." They wanted a capitalist economy and basic human rights, but were happy to associate themselves with the new German nation, its Prussian Kaiser, and its great power status. Somehwere between the Berlin Blockade and 9/11, the vast majority of the Democratic Party's elected officials, big donors, and "wise men" became National Liberals. They are four-square for American hegemony, and whatever it takes to maintain and extend that hegemony. They still want to "create opportunity" in the economy and would like all citizens, even women and gays!, to have some rights, but their bottom-line commitment is to American military and corporate power and its extension around the globe. And that is why the crimes of Bush will remain unrevealed--to reveal them would force the Dems to repudiate the means by which our wealth and power are perpetuated. That they will not do.

As far as I can tell, people like McCain and Elephantman don't really care that Iraq was no threat to us and that we had no right under any law to attack that country. We have the power, we don't like them, we needed to kill alot of Arabs to feel good after 9/11, so if thousands of dopey bystanders and Iraqi conscripts and GIs had to die, let them, tough shit. The point now is to bend the survivors over there to our will. Whatever it takes, however long it takes, to maintain fear and credibility, the show must go on. We've got to win, which means getting those people to do what we want them to do, i.e. submit to us, acknowledge our control, open their oil fields to our exploitation, accept our bases, and thank us for killing tens of thousands of them because it was all for the best. Democracy is unimportant. Pluralism is uniportant. Freedom isn't important so long as all who dissent/resist wind up dead in a ditch somewhere with a drill hole in their head. That freedom talk is all bullshit for consumption back here in the States. If they turn out like Pakistan or Egypt--pliable despotisms--that would be just great. Anything short of this outcome is "surrender." The hard fact is, perhaps half the country or more agrees. So, Elephantman, you may be amoral, but you stand firmly with the plurality. Congratulations.

I am tired of the media telling me how I shouldn't vote for X or Y because they can't win or aren't serious or some such crap. I wanted to vote for Kucinich but he got run out of town. Many people would like to vote for Ron Paul but he's been disappeared. So now I might as well forget voting for Edwards?

The whole Hilary vs. Obama soap opera makes me ill. Let me try to be a not-too-stupid liberal here. Why should I vote for either of these people? Will either roll back the imperial presidency? No way. Will they deliver universal single-payer health care? No, again. Promise of withdrawal from Iraq? Ah, that's not there, either. No preemptive war against Iran? Well, ah, only if the Israelis and their American supporters tell me that's OK. Taxes readjusted so that they are vaguely progressive again? Keep dreaming. Kyoto Protocol enforced no matter how they oil and auto industries scream bloody murder? I think not. If either of these people gave me any two of these things in clear, repeated, and unequivical language, they could command my vote. Until they do, I will vote for Edwards and damn the bastards who tell me it's in vain.

If the Democratic Congress had an agenda, and Obama had one, too, then I'd say it may be a good thing if he is President. Problem is, they don't and as far as I can tell, neither does he. Other than a little tinkering at the margins of "engorge the rich, screw the poor" domestic policy and our "bully first, bomb later" foreign policy, what does Senator Obama really have to say? And if a President Obama faced a foreign policy crisis, does anyone believe that the braying right-wing media and Republican congressional leaders won't roll him so that he can appear "tough" and "credible"? My agenda is simple: roll back the national security state and dismantle what Chalmers Johnson calls the "empire of bases" (or what one ass-kissing Brit approvingly called our "freehold empire"). With Edwards, Kucinich, and soon Ron Paul out of the race, I am left with no candidate likely to give me squat on these issues. So those who sing hossanas to Obama better explain to me his concrete proposals on these issues, or I'm wasting my vote on the Socialists or Libertarians.