She said that he had nothing else going for him.  She didn't say being rich or self-funded was a bad thing.

Exactly.  Running on your own--good thing.  Pushed by the establishment--bad thing.  The people like Eric Massa.  If someone wants to come into the race and show that the people like him/her better--great!!!  I'm all for it.  But having old politics force someone the people don't like down the people's throats (and, yes, we've seen this before) is not OK.

Exactly.  It's just an excuse.  That's the problem with diplomacy.  It can't work unless you want it to.  It's really easy to force it to fail if what you WANT is to go to war.  And that's clearly what these guys want.  Afterall, it's not like any of them are wearing uniforms... or any of their kids.

I think it is having an effect.  I think Bush is mouthing off less.  At least we've forced him more underground with his rhetoric.

Where's the concrete evidence that one can't?  The fact is, nobody knows shit about any of this.  These guys are in the race too early and they should be doing the jobs they are being paid for rather than pimping themselves.

I really don't care anyway.  However Wes Clark wants to lead his supporters toward making this country a better place is OK with me.

I'm not "choosing" anybody.  Wes Clark chose me--he reached into the abyss and plucked me out of despair for where this country was headed.  If he wants to run for Little Rock dog catcher and quietly offer up advice to Congress, I'll send him milkbones.

All this speculation in March of 2007 is pointless.  It is fully of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Let's just stop another war from occuring:

http://www.stopiranwar.com

And get your free buttons here:

http://www.stopiranwarbuttons.com

Joe's a good guy.

Sounds like you were just plain wrong Matt and instead of admitting it, apologizing, and moving on, you're looking to try to save face.  When you're in this deep of a hole, it's time to stop digging.

As far as Sestak being or not being a "progressive," I'm not sure anyone should care.  It sounds like progressives have far too many litmus tests.  It seems to me that "progressives" chose to start using that word rather than "liberal" because the definition of liberal is "open-minded."  

Joe Sestak believes that constitutionally, the Congress does not have the right to direct the military.  Hmm... I think he's right.  I'm sure he felt Murtha's plan, like Weldon's, crossed over the line.  He mentioned that many many times during the campaign.  I for one am thrilled to have a Congressman who holds the Constitution in that high of a regard.  I liken it to Russ Feingold's having voted to confirm Roberts no matter how much it made the Senator want to puke.  

Those of us in Joe's district know how lucky we are to have him in Congress fighting for us.  Honestly, I didn't think for one second that I'd like Joe Sestak when I first heard he was running.  But then I met him.  And I watched him.  This guy is as liberal as they come.  He's open-minded, tolerant, caring, and dedicated to the principles upon which this country was founded. I can't tell you how excited I was when I checked off his name on my absentee ballot; I grinned the whole way home from the court house.

To be talking about any of this.  We should be focusing on getting out of Iraq and staying out of Iran.  I wish that's what our current senators were doing.

Didn't Wes talk about something similar?

I saw Joe a couple of weeks ago at a volunteer party.  He is literally focusing all his attention on getting us out of Iraq.  I don't understand how anyone could get any other impression.

Bloggers have in the past criticized the main stream media for not doing enough investigation and when they do make a front-page mistake, posting the retraction on page 30.  Being liberal does not excuse you from learning the truth.  And it certainly does not excuse you from calling adequate attention to your mistakes in order to attempt to fix some of the damage.

Kos did this just recently when he front-paged a story quoting a random blogger from another site, apparently without doing a single bit of fact-checking.  Turns out, the random blogger had been part of a miscommunication and had reported something that wasn't really true.  To my knowledge, even though his mistake was pointed out to him, Kos refused to acknowledge that his story was incorrect.

When nobody's paying attention to you, you don't really have to be that careful to get your facts straight.  If you make a mistake, all it does is tarnish your own reputation a little.  And, if most of the time you're right, then your reputation will still grow even if you make mistakes from time to time.  But once you become well-known, other people actually listen to you.  Make a mistake, and it's spread too far to be corrected before you even realized it happened.

I will support him in whatever effort he undertakes to get the country back on track.  He's devoted to that.  If he doesn't think entering the race will be the best way to help the country and the world, then I'll support whatever effort he decides will.

As I've said directly to Wes, if he decides to run, I'm quitting my job to help.  If he decides it's better to stay in the background, I'll keep supporting his PAC.  If he wants to become Little Rock dogcatcher and work completely under the radar, I'll send him Milkbones.  If he wants to support another candidate, I'll work to get that person elected.

Wes Clark has the skills and experience to pull us out of this mess.  He's negotiated a peace treaty.  He's held 19 nations together to win a war without a single allied combat death.  He has cross-party appeal not because he compromises his ideals but because he speaks honestly and non-judgementally to everyone regardless of their opinions.  

It makes no difference to me what vehicle he uses to help us get back on track.  That said, it seems to me from everything he's been saying publicly that he is planning on running, so it does appear my current employer will probably have to learn to live without me.

He's very serious.  First, he's very serious about stopping the next war.  He's devoting his energy to that at stopIranWar.com while the current front runners are pimping themselves.  That's not what Wes does.  If the country is too shallow to accept someone like that to lead, well, then, they'll get what they deserve.  Oh, wait, isn't that what we have now?

Wes is right.  It shouldn't be a beauty contest and it should be about what people have accomplished.  

No, Wes won't play "American Presidential Idol."  He'll enter the race when he's accomplished what he needs to regarding preventing another senseless war.

What do we need to do to get Senator Edwards to put a link to stopIranWar.com on his website?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9S6G8IG5 Dw

A couple of us have started a button brigade to make and distribute free buttons for promoting stopIranWar.com.

http://www.stopIranWarButtons.com

We have many designs.  They "sell" like hotcakes at democratic events.  So far we've distributed over 1500 buttons.

You can wear one yourself as a conversation starter.  You can hand them out at events.  You can even brave public places and hand them out to total strangers.

We've also put up some "artwork" downloads--which assorted people have donated for making t-shirts, flyers, and billboards.

We'd like to do more.  I'm a decent (not spectacular) web developer.  If anyone has any ideas for other things we can do through stopIranWarButtons.com, let me know.