I guess Goodling's counting on a Bush pardon if things get too hot for her; one dirty hand washing the other.

She's showing her loyalty by continuing to stonewall, offering cover for the administration, however she can. The Democrats need to find their spines and stones awfully quickly, and get busy on these matters. The gloves have to come off, because the Bush League is gaming the system, dancing around them, to protect their leadership.

God might not be on her side, but Bush/Cheney/Rove/Gonzales sure as Hell are, and for a good little Christian fascist, that's a heavenly situation to be in, despite the impending appearance before Congress.

I think that what has most impressed me about the Bush Administration is the seemingly superhuman way in which its members can tell the most brazen lies, and then, later, when those lies are tossed back at them, they simply say "I didn't say that."

This is only possible because the mainstream American media have completely abdicated their responsibility to cover stories fully and properly. When the president and vice president are lying, they need to show what they DID say and present it to contrast what they're saying now. They're still way, way too deferential to this administration.

If they're "giving the public what it wants" -- then why is the public increasingly failing to tune into them, to buy their papers? They're falling down on the job, failing miserably, and are allowing themselves to be exploited by this administration, just as they're allowing the country at large to be misled.

Though a lot of it is just laziness across the board -- if people don't realize by now that the Bush League are bureaucratic buccaneers, if they're only waiting for Charlie Gibson on ABC Nightly News to tell them that, then they've failed in their role as citizens to keep tabs on their leadership, they've let them get away with this.

That's perhaps scarier -- we expect leaders to lie; but do we also have to expect people to care?

“I view this as the beginning of the end of the president’s policy on Iraq,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois

Yeah, whatever! What a disappointing (and unsurprising) turn of events. They blinked. Bush has abysmal approval ratings, but Congress still fears to cross him.

People need to start seriously tracking how their representatives vote, and to call them on those votes. That's one vital change that the Internet has wrought -- the traditional information asymmetry that confined Americans to an abstract spectator role in public affairs has been undone by the breadth and depth of information available on the Internet.

Find your representatives, track their votes, and contact them. That's a killer edge progressives have, relative to their reactionary opponents -- our presence on the Net, our use of it, far outstrips theirs. They epitomize old, hand-me-down politics -- hence talk radio as their perfect medium. The new medium is ours, we're the ones using it the most.

So, use it. That's how we'll turn the ears of our representatives, make them actually representative our will. Show them that you're paying attention, and that you either approve of or disapprove of what they're doing. That'll begin to change politics as usual, and we need that badly, given how routinely the Bush League browbeats Congress.

The Net is the progressive's not-so-secret weapon against the status quo and against the reactionaries, so I'm glad that some Democrats do get it, are capitalizing on it, because the GOP is way, way behind on Net-based politicking, and stand to remain so for another generation, by the look of things.

They seem uncomfortable with the interactivity of it, the possibility of involvement and active engagement of Net participants -- they're control freaks, and it makes them nervous. Their strengths are more on top-down politicking, whether from a talk radio host spouting screeds to his dittoheads, or from an incestuously funded reactionary think tank releasing propaganda press kits or providing skewed experts for mainstream press venues, or attendees at megachurches handed voter guides and told what to do. They like their followers to be a mass who are safely controlled and contained -- like a herd being guided by the horse-riding ranch hands the GOP all pretend to be.

But the Net's bottom-up kind of culture absolutely lends itself to progressive politicking, which is why we've been thriving in it, and why politicians who get that difference will eventually prosper, as the medium evolves, and surpasses the old-school media (which will continue to claw and fight for relevance, even as the times, its poor performance, and people's increased expectations of media leave Old Media ever-more marginalized).

I think it's funny how stilted Clinton's campaign appears, compared with the Obama and Edwards campaigns. I think that's a significant difference, reflecting a lot about the respective campaigns. Hers appears to be a token presence just to buttress her Old Media, Old Politics approach, while Obama and Edwards are blazing along, pursuing a new approach. That's exciting stuff!

The smackdown of Dean notwithstanding, it's the future of politics in America, and right now it's entirely ours. I always thought Dean should've handled "The Scream" by saying it was his hockey cheer -- that would've played well with everyday people, who (*gasp*) cheer when they get psyched about things. But really it was an Old Media hit job on a New Media candidate.

My worry is the fuddy-duddies in Iowa and New Hampshire will still be enamored of Old Media, will reward Old Media candidates like Clinton and punish New Media candidates like Obama and Edwards, and will not recognize that the new approach is our ace in the hole against the GOP (which has shown itself to be able to masterfully manipulate, co-opt, and pacify Old Media).