I tried but could not change the results. Resolved to avoid this in future.  My apologies to all.

Now, back to brain surgery.

I goofed up (see below).  Thanks for explaining, and it was ridiculous to rate the comments in the first place.  

History prof was so irritated by Matt's post that he committed a horrendous sin of wasting valuable time (I had to postpone the neurosurgery I was supposed to perform at 10:40) on a blog thread, and then compounded it by using the rating system to rate the comments.  I'm also an ignormaus when it comes to understanding the ratings system. I thought 1 meant approve, and 3 was disapprove.  My intention was to boost all the pro-Stewarts because I agreed with them, even with sketpic06.  It was a childish thing to do, nonetheless.  Feel free to counterbalance my error.  

Leading with a complaint about a joke (which Matt apparently didn't get) on the Daily Show?  I guess Bush really is bouncing if we're returning to the circular firing squad method of liberal analysis.  

Please ignore prior dumb post. It's CD5.

Great news, but don't get my hopes by saying that the CD 5, the district housing James Dobson's hometown of Colorado Springs, might go for the Democrats this year.  Tancredo and Fawcett are in CD 6 and closer to Denver.

Once again, the every other month "Dean is a problem" story shows up. Once again, I made a  contribution to the DNC.

When Qwest is the good guy you know we're in troubled times.

See their 2003 rap sheet for accounting fraud:
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2003/Februar y/03_crm_112.htm
Also see 2005 indictment of a different Qwest CEO for similar shenannigans
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-60023 47.html

To get another example of the fine, ambivalent line Democrats are walking on censure I'm pasted below an email reply to my request for support of Feingold from my state's (Colorado) Democratic Senator, Ken Salazar. Here's his message:

"Thank you for contacting me regarding Senator Feingold's resolution to censure the President concerning warrantless wiretaps.

I believe that warrantless spying on Americans is extremely serious. I also believe that Congress must insist on collecting all of the facts about any warrantless spying program and thoroughly accounting for precisely what actions were taken by the Administration before considering other action.

Censure of an American president has occurred only once in our history, back in the early days of our Republic, when Andrew Jackson was President.

Thank you again for writing.

Sincerely,

Ken Salazar
United States Senator"

Salazar neither affirms nor denies support for censure, but suggests it's a bad idea in being done only once before.  To me the surprise is that he does not outright reject censure. others might readit differently.

Also interesting in Colorado is that the Democratic surge is continuing after progressives, led by peace and environmental activist Pat Waak, won control of the state Democratic Party and overthrew the DLC-like regime of Denver lawyer Chris Gates.  

The change in state party leadership has been criticized by Gates supporters because Gates presided over the 2004 wins, and because of his fundraising prowess. Waak and co. have been caricatured as idealistic amateurs who are messing with success.  Conventional wisdom had them self-destructing by now.  

Should Ritter win and the legislature stay Democratic it will boost the argument for progressive reform within the party as a means for helping Democrats beat Republicans.

However, there is a weird sense of disproportionality to the outcry over the Liberal scandals and the reality of Liberal governance.  The Conservative attack on Liberal sleaze resonates with the GOP's fury at the Clinton scandals of the late 90s. One hopes that the parallels between the fall of the U.S. Democrats in 1990s and the fall of the Canadian Liberals in the 00s end there.

While the sponsorship corruption was real it is not on the order of the Abramoff bribes and related corruption currently messing up the US government. Moreover, Paul Martin was not involved.  As with Lewinsky the Cons have treated the sponsorship scandal as high treason and grounds for removal regardless of its actual impact.  These attacks and tv ads slamming Martin registering some of business assets outside of Canada fit into Ben's account of the anti-corruption, Conservative integrity pitch. Will Harper follow through on this commitment to honest government?  His affinities to the ideology of the US GOP make me worry that he shares their "do as I say not as I do" approach to ethics.  

I'm guessing the Democrats in leadership offices have the same attitude towards today's post by Chris.  The elected leadership might think that publicly calling for an end to the war will only get them caricatured as latter-day commie peaceniks.

Chris might be able to shed some light on the elected leadership's reluctance to act by reflecting on the blogosphere's calculation that the 9/24 rally was too far out for a warm embrace.    What is the right forum, the right message, the right face for opposing the war?  If the 9/24 rally was not the way to go about criticizing the war what is?  

It's possible, however, that the 9/24 rally and its messengers are in the end what opposition to the war will look like, or be made to look like, no matter who says they want out or how they say it.  And that's the tough call that elected Democrats and progressive bloggers have to make.  Do they want to go up against the most compelling ideological argument to come out of 9/11?  That is, do they want to run in the face of America's post-9/11 commitment to re-fight and win the Vietnam War?  

9/11 gave the right a chance to reinforce their narrative of Vietnam--i.e. we lost it because we weren't tough enough. 9/11 provided a near-perfect excuse for putting the nation on an ideological war footing.  Bush presented himself as strength personified and then framed all issues as tests of strength vs. weakness, courage vs. caution . . .   Invading Iraq looked like a lousy idea to many at the time, few could take on the logic of Bush's implicit choice between self-respect (war) and defeatism (more sanctions).  That framing also won the close calls in the 2002 senate races, and it forced Kerry to campaign against Bush by saying "I'm tougher than you."  Bush used 9/11 to turn politics into a test of strength, and to put the presumption of strength on his side and the presumption of weakness on the Dems.    

The public has clearly grown tired of Bush's posturing and Bush's presidency, but I think leading Democrats doubt that the 9/11 war mindset has vanished.  Their bad experiences in 2002 and 2004 may have inflicted a wound that polls can't heal.  

Which helps explain why not only high ranking officials like Biden and Clinton, but also the progressive blogs wanted nothing to do with the 9/24 rally's organizers: Cindy Sheehan, the Green Party, United for Peace and Justice, and especially not ANSWER. Instead Democrats keep drafting appropriately nuanced tough-sounding plans for phased withdrawal.  The right plan has yet to emerge, and probably never will because the politics of the issue are really between getting out and staying in.  Advocating getting out means appearing weak and defeatist, and post-9/11 politics have made that something Democrats will not risk.  

Of course, the choice isn't between defeat and victory. It's between officially losing the war now and officially losing years from now.  A convincing plan to win the war is even scarcer than a tough-sounding plan for withdrawing.  To stay with the Vietnam metaphor, it's a choice between officially losing in 1968 or in 1974. For all the fear of McGovern's ghost and his shellacking in 1972 on an antiwar platform, the defeats of two pro-war Democrats, Humphrey in 1968 and Kerry in 2004, should remind Democrats that there is no nuanced way to play the politics of war when the other party is the war party and they make the issue as black and white as possible.        

It will take months, maybe until October 2006, maybe 2008, maybe never, for the Democratic leadership to come out against the war.  Of course, they could have done this in 2002, certainly in 2004.  If it were any other issue but war the wait wouldn't be so tragic.