To an otherwise great post I agree with otherwise:

They even failed to provide children's health insurance even though their entire party and much of the GOP favored it. They don't feel the slightest bit ashamed or remorseful about any of that.

I don't think SCHIP needs to be brought into this, as they have fought the republicans admirably on it. In particular, since this is mostly about the Senate, the Senate actually did vote to override Bush on SCHIP. The House GOP is the obstace (and of course, Bush who keeps vetoing the damn thing).

Anyway, I'm sure one could try and blame the Democrats for not acceding to Bush's demands about the limits of the program, but Bush isn't a force of nature either and chose to veto an enormously popular bill. The House republicans have chosen to stand by him instead of the American people.

Who should prevail? Where does the blame lie?

In short, SCHIP is not a good example of Democratic capitulation and failure to Bush.

What would really help, is if prominent and influential house Democrats vowed not to endorse any conference bill including tel-co immunity.

That would bolster the few brave warriors in the Senate.

So where is Reyes, Rangel, Pelosi, Slaughter and the Progressive Caucus?

Think of concentric lines of defence. The enemy will go for the weakest point in the line, and that is usually where there is no reinforcement. If the netroots can't move 40 senators to vote against cloture, then move 150 representatives to vote against the conference bill.

Let's see if Pelosi wants to have the optics of passing the conference bill with 200 republicans plus some Bush Dogs.

Bill Clinton's comments were over the line. It's tough for us to admit the media was right about something, since they've been hysterically fainting and reaching for the smelling salts over every single thing Bill Clinton has ever said since about 1993.

But stopped clocks and all that.

I do recommend reading Josh Marshall, who mused about Bill Clinton holding "de facto" office in the Democratic party and I think it's spot on. Bill is not like Michelle Obama or Elisabeth Edwards. Disadvantage of being a senior statesman and former Democratic President, he cannot be "former President Bill Clinton" one day, and "Mr. Clinton, spouse of Hillary" the next.

Also, beyond the primary, I do fear Hillary winning a Pyrrhic victory with this kind of thing. The notion of "destructive primaries" hurting a nominee in the general is not invented out of whole cloth. It does happen.

Where there was massive bi-partisan support from Republicans breaking ranks, and the President repeatedly vetoes the bill.

Where was the clucking about bi-partisanship then from the high Broder priests? Or over stem cells? Or that the minimum wage had to be tacked onto Iraq funding to avoid a veto/senate gop obstruction?

Bowers at Openleft has really nailed the problem with this congress: It is still a conservative working majority, even though the Democrats are nominally in the majority. There are 60 reliably conservative votes in the senate, and about 225 in the house. This is the origin of the "bush dogs" concept, the 15-30 House Democrats who can be counted on to vote with the Republicans and the President on all the really bad security, civil rights and tax cut bills. The vote counts in the House on the PAA were the most aggregious example of this.

They're why we have so little faith that if the Senate passes the telco immunity that the House won't do the same, since the 200 Republicans and 20 democrats will vote for it and pass it, even though 90% of the House Democrats will oppose it.

If you want to change that, help Donna Edwards and Mark Pera beat two Bush Dogs in their primary races in the next two weeks. When Lieberman lost his Democratic primary, the whole Party started running against the Iraq war, and subsequently retook congress. If Bush Dogs Al Wynn and Dan Lipinski are defeated, the other dozen Bush Dogs will be scared into line, as will many other New Democrats, DLC quislings and Blue Dogs. And the Senators and Presidential candidates will notice too. Maybe Obama won't chide the "excesses" of the left and run against imaginary DFH's so much. Perhaps Hillary will...well little hope of her becomming a full fledged progressive. Obama I have hope for though.

but lol nonetheless!

I think maybe you've been reading a lot of Digby lately. Awesome.

Businessmen, in my experience, are generally more idealistic than politicians.

What a remarkably revealing statement.

Only a Republican operative could say this and have it actually be true. As ludicrous as it seems, I do believe that your average Republican politician is more cynical and sociopathic than your Ken Lays or Erik Princes.

I like it when we get unintentional nuggets of honesty from the right.

We don't tune in to some leftwing version of the Michael Wiener/Rush Limbaugh-type assholes for assistance on what to think)

There. is. no. such. thing. Doesn't everyone see that? There is no symmetry between the sides. There's no left wing Coulter or Golberg. It's not a fluke. Placing yourself 'above the fray' just means they win.

When Solomon was confronted with the two women both claiming the surviving baby as theirs, guess which ideology would better fit the woman willing to have the baby cut in half rather than relent in the dispute?

When you try and fly above the fight, you are cutting the baby in half. Balanced, unbiased and utterly wrong.