So.......What's your point? It's a bad, corrupt world out there and Congress is in on the fix just hoping to get their's? We didn't know this already?

I'm sorry, but Glenn's intellect is, shall we say, every bit as sharp as yours - and that's giving you a benefit of the doubt. But being the admirer of Maureen O'Dowd you are inclines me to a wee bit o' the auld skepticism. Whatever.....

What Glenn has done, week after week, month after month, is provide a cogent analysis of some of the aspects of criminality that fuckwad and his minions have perpetrated on this country. What he's written in this post seems to have struck a nerve. It involves, like, actually doing something!

Lots of nervous nellies clasping their pearls and stumbling toward their fainting couches. They're saying, "NO! You can't DO something! It's O.K. to write critical posts and all but, please, Glenn! No action! It might mean There Will Be Change! And we can't handle that! Oh, the Uncertainty of it all. Everything won't be nice and predictable! Rahm and Chuck and Arlen and Nancy! Oh Nancy! She just won't be able to handle it! And then the Republicans will git us again!" Like they didn't do it just two weeks ago even while broken and bleeding, scattered and in chaos.

But there has been not. one. cogent. argument. countering Glenn's. Not one.

Your criticism? it's not for "citizens engaged in the business of living, working, raising a family. or just plain economic survival."

Maybe not, if they literally don't have time for being involved in what we're doing, that's OK. But if you expect Glenn to take on the true enemies within and comfort the masses simultaneously, why not ask him to tie one hand behind his back as well?

Will Glenn's strategy work? The only way to find out is to try it. You can piss and moan and be Mr. Critical if you want but I'd rather do something, even if it fails. So far, the first step is working. We've got their attention. And the "Money Bomb" is yet to be released (August 8th). Maybe it's just me, but simply being snide about the darkness seems less than worthless.

It's a bit of a stretch to claim that "the whole country has moved to the right over a long arc in time". Parts of it did, yes, once the depression got tidied up and people forgot that FDR's policies actually worked for the economic benefit of the working class. Once they began enjoying a relatively comfortable life they got suckered into Reagan's hoax. They may have thought that they could get by and wouldn't need the trickle down that never happened.

Do they still feel that way? Not so much. They never imagined Bush. Much less Cheney. and, and, and, .......

People today are beginning to realize that they need a functioning government, and one that isn't a closet theocracy. They're also beginning to realize that labor unions just might have something to offer them besides mindless obedience and corruption.

We won't be reliving the past century, no, and there is no magic bullet to cure everything and everyone won't be getting a sparkle pony. But the election in '06 wasn't just about Iraq and the blatant ineptitude and criminality of Neoconism. We're headed into something which is different. I don't know exactly what it will be but if we're lucky and remain vigilant, it won't be controlled by Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh. And if we can reach down in the toilet and rescue the fourth amendment. And, oh, habeas corpus?

Ergo, punish Chris Carney and, if possible, Steny Hoyer for having no principles whatsoever.

And, just one more thing, go ahead and make a play for O'Dowd. She might be up for it. But, if things go well, don't become complacent. She can be treacherous.

Carrying out the demonstrated wishes of the electorate is an excuse that was used by people like Richard Nixon, Newt Gingrich and George Bush for their actions.

a) this is largely horseshit. Nixon and Bush have been notorious for dismissing the desires of the electorate, when placed against the desires of the President.

b) apparently the premise is that, because others have lied in their promises about "carrying out the wishes of the electorate", the present attitude towards government shouldn't even bother to try.

Elected officials of conscience need to consider all viewpoints and then do what they think is right, not what is perceived as politically correct at the moment.

No, elected officials need not "consider all viewpoints". They should consider the viewpoints of the people who helped them get elected. That's how democratic republics are supposed to work. The argument that Democratic congresspeople should consider the viewpoints of Republicans is profoundly silly.

The Republican senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Spector, (sic)

has done that frequently, and it's one reason he keeps winning in what otherwise has become a Blue state.

Specter is your model for an ideal legislator? Well that explains a lot.

Specter never actually accomplishes anything, does he? He goes on TV and poses and wrings his hands about how the Bush administration is taking too many powers, but he never used his power as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee to actually stop anything, did he? He's also notorious for criticizing a recent surveillance bill as "unconstitutional" and then proceeding to vote for it.

So far, you appear to be continuing in the proud tradition of "concern troll", who worries that liberals cannot actually take power in the US and should be content to permanently be an abused minority in a conservative-dominated government. This kind of belief in self-immolation as a political strategy belies historical short-sightedness that thinks everything important in the history of politics happened in the past 20 years.

Politics really is not a game that can be easily fit on a left-right axis where the "center" will inevitably win. The history of politics and the intellectual development of different schools of thought is far more complex than that. Rather than viewing the history of political thought as a simple back-and-forth between competing ideas, I think it is far more accurate to view the competition through the lens of evolution. Some ideas are eventually discarded as outmoded and outdated, and replaced by newer ideas as time goes on.