If I misunderstood you, I apologize. But there simply are places where if Democrats want to win -- and thus secure and retain Pelosi as Speaker -- you can't run a Pelosi. It is rather like a Republican such as Rudy could become mayor of NYC, while a Santorum wouldn't be given a first look.

-- -Mona-

There is no "if", you did misunderstand me. And it's no wonder you misunderstood since you insist - as you have now to both Kovie and to me - that if we speak of replacing a Blue Dog that automatically equates to us wanting to run a "Pelosi" against said Blue Dog. I don't know why you keep making that over the top assumption. I honestly didn't think of you as someone who uses that kind of nonsense in holding up your end of a conversation.

The Ghost of Our National Nightmare Past:

I'm sure many of you remember how miserable the early months of George W. Bush's administration were back in 2001, coming off the horrendous election coup and the MSM's complete failure in the lead-up to that election, during the judicial coup, and throughout the early, relentless neocon rollback on any and all societal progress on every front imaginable by the Bush Admin. (Speaking of which, was the withdrawal by executive order from the Kyoto Treaty anything that needs to be revisited in articles of impeachment?) That was the backstory to 9/11 as I remember it, so that as my now-wife and I watched the TV in horror on that September morning, we had the secondary thought that, "Crap, now this is going to give the Bushies carte blanche to do whatever they want" ... which is pretty much exactly what happened, in spite of the millions of people protesting in the streets. In large part due to the politicians of both parties playing to their constituency ... no, not us, rather the corporate megaphone of the MSM, that stenographer and propaganda arm of the Bush Admin, which registered vast opposition to Bush policies as merely a blip on the inevitable path. Any thinking person recognized the ruthlessness and lawlessness of this gang of criminals in the White House and could not help but feel frustrated at the Democrats ineffectual opposition, in part due to the lack of a majority and any ability to force oversight. An important parallel to this weekend's legislative debacle was John Kerry's positioning on Iraq in the lead-up to the 2004 election wherein he staked out territory by saying he would have searched for WMDs too in line with Bush's policies, in anticipation, seemingly, of an October surprise (with full MSM participation) by Karl Rove et al. . . . Karl fakes a left jab and Kerry hits himself in the face by taking the same position as Bush with his own right hand. Depressing.

The Ghost of Our National Nightmare Present:

The Bushies ramp up the P.R. machine and at every opportunity project the fear of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil and the media dutifully spreads the distortion no matter how contradictory the logic, etc. Now, most sentient beings must at least in some dark recess of their brains believe that the Bushies are capable of allowing an attack on U.S. soil to advance their own purposes. Karl et al. thus fake their left jab again (with the MSM in lockstep), and voila, Nancy/Harry et al. hit themselves in the face with their own right hands yet again for fear of being on the losing side of a gamble with the gang of thugs in the White House. (Or at least that's one scenario easy for me to imagine, since I have to believe that many of the Dems in Congress were re-elected and thus constitute much of the same bunch that capitulated to Bush's every whim/threat/provocation before.) Depressing but not entirely surprising.

The Ghost of Our National Nightmare Future?:

I think while we still have access to a functioning internet and a semblance of the rights we grew up with, there had better be discussion of how progressives/liberals can organize, communicate and help one another and our nation/constitution survive in the event of martial law. Hopefully, that is just an alarmist sentiment, but if your internet were cut-off tomorrow in the supposed interest of national security or at the very least subject to explicit monitoring, what would you really do?

You know, it would be an interesting exercise for those with an interest to collaborate and come up with a "voters' platform." I wonder if it's something we could do at Gordon's blog...

I guess this is a good idea.

I am not just disheartened by recent events, though. I tried a lot of letters and postings to get someone interested in an education agenda that revived traditional liberal arts education in the universities and concentrated on post-K-12 education for the first time in years, and got ignored. I also tried to get reinstatement of the GI bill in full (Reagan's excuse for ending it was that veterans hadn't fought in wars in years). I'm not even a vet, I just thought it was a good program and only fair. I got a lot of support the troops statements and got ignored. I tried to get the issue of better pay for emergency medical system workers on the agenda. Isn't labor a bread and butter issue in the Democratic party? Do you really want the person doing your pre-hospital care to have worked the last 40 hours consecutively because she's making $7.32 an hour and needs to work at two ambulance companies to keep an apartment? I got ignored.

I wouldn't mind if they took all their cues from the big luminaries if the big luminaries cared about people anymore, but they don't. I tried recently to get funding for getting more of the 2% of the country that hold Ph.D.'s involved in basic research at least part of their careers. We need the research, on all sorts of fronts -- it got torpedoed by a luminary that doesn't want the competition to a basic research program for academics on whose board he sits.

So then when the Democrats start actually participating in this Rape of the Constitution stuff, it really feels like a stab in the back. I mean, you can argue what you want about Democrats in Montana or Down South, or whatever, but Feinstein is from the Deep Blue part of the Indigo State on the Left Coast. No way she's representing her constituency's desire to be spied on. Do you remember Eldridge Cleaver? If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. So the Democrats need to explain why I should vote for part of the problem.