NOT A DIME'S WORTH OF DIFFERENCE? HOW ABOUT A NICKEL? A PLUGGED NICKEL?

Will "Stand By Your Man" vs "Bush Sucks" be the only difference most voters see before they head the the ballot boxes-- or, ominously, touch screens-- in November. If it's up to the Democrats' Inside-the-Beltway power mongering scumbags like Chuck Schumer and Rahm Emanuel, it will be.

I can tell you I have never once watched Scarborough Country, a right-wing talk show on MSNBC hosted by some failed extremist Republican congressloon from Florida who resigned after being implicated in-- but never charged with-- the covered-up murder of one of his young female staffers. Today, while most people were fast asleep my friend Pach from firedoglake sent me a transcript from Scarborough's Monday night show, a segment called "Congressional Memo." If Democratic challengers follow-- as they have been so far-- Rahm Emanuel's diktat to blur the differences between Democrats and Republicans on Iraq, a mirror image of his own pathetic record, they can expect to hear lots of this kind of thing.

Well, the Iraq war is the topic of tonight's "Congressional
Memo." You know, the Iraq war continues to divide America and the
world but after the shouting dies down and you figure out what both
sides are saying, you learn that Republican and Democratic leaders just
aren't that far apart. And while I encountered political posturing
in Congress, and as a member of the Armed Services Committee, I never
saw a political fight where there was so much a smoke and so little
fire. You know, Republicans bash Democrats for being weak on defense
and Democrats bash Republicans for leading America into the deadly war
that they believe does little to protect America.

But listen to this a little more closely to what the major party
leaders are saying.  And you're going to see, there's not a dimes
worth of difference between either party. President Bush supported
this war. The Democrats 2004 nominee, John Kerry, supported this war.
And the Democrats 2008 candidate, Hillary Clinton, supported this war.
Likewise, they all warned us, everyone warned us of Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction. All of them of them voted for the invasion. All of
them supported the Patriot Act, all of them oppose immediate
withdrawal from Iraq and all refuse to name a date certain when
American troops should come home. What's the difference?

Well, the Democrats will tell you the president screwed up.  But heck,
even the president is saying he screwed up. So again, no difference.
The biggest difference seems to be the Democratic leaders are still
refusing to admit that they were wrong-wrong about voting for the
war, if in fact it was wrong. Wrong about WMDs, wrong about giving
this president a blank check to go into a war that they want their base
to think they opposed.

Friends, they didn't oppose that war. And leaders like Hillary
Clinton still don't oppose that war. And if you don't believe me,
then try to find a quote by the New York senator calling for the
withdrawal of U.S. troops. You won't find it, because it doesn't
exist.

Senator Clinton, like George Bush, and like every politician in
Washington who has a real shot at being elected to the White House in
2008 knows that leaving Iraq now would destroy American credibility
across the globe for the next 50 years. And even if they believe
George Bush weakened our standing by entering Iraq, they now know that
surrendering to terrorists simply is not an option.

So, the next time you hear a politician whining about his opponent's
Iraq's policy you can be sure that it's much ado about nothing,
because when it comes to getting out of Iraq, Republicans may be
clueless, but Democrats are spineless. And that's tonight's
"Congressional Memo."

Right now I'm not obsessed with Hillary Clinton the way the right-wing is. My concern is with the candidates running for Congress as Democrats in November, the people who could put the breaks on Bush's headlong rush towards out-and-out fascism in this country. But this isn't what concerns our Democratic leadership in DC. These careerist little Stalins-- Emanuel, Hoyer, Schumer...-- seem nearly as unconcerned about America as the Republicans. And they express this in their vicious-- and so far effective-- war against grassroots Democrats, particularly grassroots Democrats who oppose Bush's (and, for example, Emanuel's) war in Iraq.

Right now Bruce Reed, one of the DLC hacks, is busy ghostwriting a book, THE PLAN, for Emanuel that is supposed to serve among Inside-the-Beltway bottom-feeders as the "Democrats' Contract With America." Meanwhile Emanuel continues his systematic campaign to make sure the Democratic candidates who run against endangered Republican incumbents in November are passionless, cookie-cutter, corporate-supporting, Emanuel-supporting shills-- exactly what the Democratic Party and what our country DOES NOT NEED. Suggestion: it's not too late to get behind grassroots candidates like Jerry McNerney, the Democrat who can beat Richard Pombo, and Jan Schneider, the Democrat who can turn Katherine Harris' congressional seat blue. May I suggest a visit?