With Democrats providing "opposition" like this to the Republicans' program of permanent pandering to plutocrats, who stands between us and them?

I hope everyone has read Howie's update to his earlier exhortation to flush out crypto-Republican Democrats in primary races. The update concerns the apparent intention of Montana Sen. Max Baucus, as ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, to connive with the Republicans to deliver enough Democratic votes to etch the repeal of the inheritance tax in stone.

God, this is depressing.

How do we ever communicate to a majority of the electorate our vision of an enlightened, progressive America when so many Democrats occupying positions of power don't get it? I think it's time to consider what we have to look forward to—in my mind a singularly inappropriate choice of words—the next time Democrats latch onto some governmental power.

We've sort of butted up against the subject, most often in connection with the dreadful roster of "Republican lite" sludge whom people like DCCC czar Rahm Emanuel are trying to bring into the party's congressional caucus. But I think this calls for some fuller consideration. As William Greider points out in the Nation piece that Howie quotes, the increasingly unspeakable and out-of-control Senator Baucus is in line to chair the Finance Committee if the Democrats should regain control of the Senate.

I'm too depressed to undertake it just now, but we can't put it off forever.