At a time when every imaginary "misstep" of Howard Dean is big news, why isn't anyone else screaming about Boss Rahm?

The Rolling Stone whitewash of Boss Rahm cited by DWT is interesting.

I have some sympathy with the notion that politics is a dirty game, so we gotta have our own players. But it seems to me that DWT has outlined a pretty consistent and pretty damning case against the actual day-in, day-out practices of "our" attack dog, the case being that an inordinate amount of his attacking is directed at Democrats, and in particular the kind of Democrats who might help drag us out of the present political morass.

After all, to an alarming extent, if Boss Rahm succeeds in getting his candidates elected, the end result is hardly any change, since with most any policy issue that comes before the House, we will be stuck with the argument that we have to accept a "Bush lite" position because so many House Democrats—including all these stiffs Boss Rahm is trying to force-feed into Congress—won't go along with anything more enlightened.

Meanwhile in the Senate, as DWT has pointed out, the drive by certain party leaders to anoint the Lieberman-like Casey as the choice to take on the extremely vulnerable Santorum without giving Pennsylvania Democrats a say in the matter winds up at best burdening the Senate Democratic caucus with . . . well, another Lieberman. Fine for Bush and whatever pondscum comes after him, not so fine for the country.

What I'm wondering is why Boss Rahm seems to be getting so little media scrutiny, when no opportunity seems to be lost spreading lies about how Howard Dean is ruining the Democrats' chances. (Of course this isn't really a mystery. The Far Right not only conrols its own media noise machine but sets the agenda for the mainstream media, and Dean-bashing seems to bring Rush and Sean & co. about as close to a sexual thrill as they get.)

You know, I knew that Dean's position reminded me of someone, and it finally occurred to me. I'm thinking of former Iranian President Khatami, who despite his lack of real power (in a job that sounds like it should carry some clout) seems truly to have attempted to move his country in a reformist direction, in accordance with both present-day realities and the apparent wishes of the Iranian people.

Powerless as he was, Khatami seems to have been a serious irritant to the ruling theocrats, because he kept the existence of alternative policies alive and therefore possible. So when the time came, the mullahs made sure to purge the irritant, and make sure that nothing like it could take Khatami's place. It's mostly only after the fact that we can see that he really did make a difference: not by accomplishing much positive, but by keeping things from getting even worse than they did.

It's all so depressing. And as DWT keeps pointing out, there's plenty of evidence that it's also unnecessary, that Boss Rahm and the DLC and the other "Bush lite" Democrats simply have no idea what's actually happening "out there" in the country. Of course, DWT has also suggested that it wouldn't make any difference if they knew, because their only interest seems to be entrenching their own little enclaves of power.

Which ironically will remain little enclaves, because they're so afraid of a more inclusive politics.