I wanted to add to the above letter:

I wondered, at George Bush's win last week on the Iraq war, if he was partly a little dissapointed. --In the way some of the young teenagers, in the support group I led many years ago, showed cryptic disappointment at being allowed too much freedom. I had one girl and her mother in family therapy at the same time she was in my weekly group for 12-13 year olds. With her mother she loudly complained that she didn't get to do what she wanted to do, complained about every limit her single mother set. BUT -- in the group, when another girl complained that her mother wasn't home enough, didn't seem to care what she did, let her do too much, stay out too late, etc., this SAME GIRL (the first girl) responded: Yeah, I have the same problem with my mother. (!) I learned a lot that day; it surprised the hell out of me, a beginning therapist.

I wonder if, though he may compain loudly and consistently, George Bush might be partly (secretly) relieved at being stopped, when Congress finally gets together to realize they should be doing it.

--It might be that Congresspeople should risk some blame for stopping the war (we know they should), and risk some of the vaunted terrible outcomes of leaving Iraq [but see first: former Presidential candidate George McGovern and co-author's book on how to do this honorably, honestly and carefully, but completely] because George Bush simply cannot stop himself and risk personal humiliation. Some people are run by pride. These people are not amenable to reason and Congress leaders should not keep trying to bloody their heads on three-foot thick concrete walls by trying. Nor to give in to fears of irrational arguments that they don't care about the troops or that when they vote for funding the troops they are not voting for funding the troops.

I loved Keith Olbermann's rant at the end of his show Wednesday. As I sat there, and kept thinking he would end here, and here, I was awed as he kept going, saying all the things I felt and think. As I listened, toward the end, finally, the tips of my fingers tingled, as they haven't done since I used to practice qi gong regularly; it was quite a gift, what happened to my body and hearing someone else react so honestly, forthrightly, passionately and certainly about a sociopath being allowed (allowed!!) to continually force human beings into the murderous maw of certain terror and potential death. It was finally an expression which was enough. Long, endless, wonderful: enough at last to fully say what was needed to be said.

The problem with Americans' reactions to this war are that they are not, daily, in some way consonant, in fulsome speech and actions, with this man's expression on Wednesday.

It was beautiful.

The DemocRAT party reneged on its obligation to discontinue the congressional rubber-stamping of the Bush agenda. The resident and the congress played chicken, the congress swerved, and the soldiers lost.

"...The problem isn't that Democrats won't stand up against the war, the problem is that the American people won't stand up against the war. To most people, the war just barely registers on their radar screens. Most people don't know anybody serving in Iraq. Most people aren't suffering in any way whatsoever from the war in Iraq. Taxes haven't gone up and the draft is not even a remote possiblity. Gas prices really aren't that bad and aren't obviously connected to the war...."

True. If having to chose between war and getting something of dire importance done another way, Americans'll opt for the former. That is why we're mired in this mess, in the first place.

And, the Democrats--who can be blamed for having written a check they couldn't cash vis a vis their base--know it. Given a choice between realizing that Republicans in this present incarnation don't represent their interest [especially in regard to sending their friends and relatives into the meat-grinder] and, once again, as they have since the nineteen sixties, looking upon the Democratic party as a bunch of spineless alien "others," most Americans'll opt for the latter, thank you very much.

Sorry, but I'm sure most of the Congressional Dems realize this one salient point: the only reason why those polls show most of the American electorate, which supported the invasion, against the war is because we're losing it.

If we had won in Iraq, and made all the right moves to crimp or forestall an insurgency, do you really think the electorate would be on the right side of the poll question: "Do you think going to war in Iraq was the correct-and moral-thing to do?"

The Dems in Washington know their support is tissue thin; that given a choice between seeing the Democratic Party as the more progressive political party and voting for one that--because of its make-up, outlook and professed "values"--they're comfortable with, no matter how much the evidence is to the contrary, the electorate will pull that lever for the elephant every time. The first time a catastrophic slaughter of an American military unit in Iraq hit the papers, in the wake of the successful passage of a congressional defunding effort, the Dems will be successfully tagged with the label "surrender monkeys" and most of the public, present polls not withstanding, will buy it and come January 2009, say hello to Rudy Giuliani, the forty-fourth President of these United States.

I ask a simple question the answer must surely be;

Are all politicians liars, or are all liars politicians?

Have the Congressional "representatives" never visited a foreign marketplace where, when the named price is too dear, one walks away? In due time, the seller calls one back with a less expensive idea.

The Democratic "leadership" has utterly failed. A reasonable bill was sent to the president and he failed the troops and all of us by vetoing it. All the Congress needed to do then was go on to the next order of business on the agenda.

There's an old saying: "Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it."

We are outraged, furious, betrayed, ashamed for our own party.

What the hell NOW?