The World's Richest Crook, Hosni Mubarak, Wasn't A DLC Member... And Now It's Too Late

I knew Hosni Mubarak had appropriated an unconscionable amount of Egypt's national wealth-- for himself, his family and his circle of cronies/enforcers (including, of course so called "vice president" Omar Suleiman)-- including, of course, the tens of billions of dollars the U.S. has been bribing him with to protect Israel. But who knew he was the richest man in the world, richer even than Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Mukesh Ambani or Carlos Slim... or even the Koch Bros, currently the chief financiers of the Republican Counter-Revolution? Yesterday's NY Post:

Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak is laughing all the way to the casbank.

The most hated man in Egypt, where anti-government protests raged for a 13th day yesterday, is likely the richest man in the world, a bombshell report reveals.

The teetering tyrant’s family fortune is worth about $70 billion-- stashed away in Swiss and other foreign bank accounts and shadowy real-estate holdings in Manhattan, London and Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, the Guardian newspaper reports.

That puts the 82-year-old despot comfortably ahead of Mexican business magnate and New York Times sugar daddy Carlos Slim Helu, who’s worth about $53.5 billion, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the richest American with $53 billion, according to a list of the world’s richest men by Forbes.com.

And that golden nest egg has the Arab world seeing red.

“Mubarak! This is not your money. You must return back every penny to Egypt,” a poster named Hassan commented on the Web site of PressTV, a Mideast-based broadcast.

“Leaders in the Arab world are the richest men in the world, while their people are poor and oppressed. The only peace is knowing these people will face justice when they meet Allah,” added Nazir, another poster.

Tunisian dictator Ben Ali and his family managed to make off with over $7 billion that belonged to the Tunisian people, which partially explains why he was so willing to pack up the last of his country's gold reserves and head off to a very sympathetic Saudi Arabia, another Middle Eastern tyrannical kleptocracy. If the Egyptian people thought Mubarak would follow the same trajectory, they hadn't reckoned with the masters of the universe having decided that the slide had to stop in Egypt and not bring down the established order in Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, Syria, Oman, the Emirates and, ultimately, Saudi Arabia. No one really cares about Mubarak-- even if he is a close and generous family friend of the Clintons-- but the regime had to be stabilized and maintained. Even if he really wanted to get the hell out, the U.S., the Saudis, Israel, et al. could not let that happen until one of their own was in place to keep running the show. The status quo doesn't die off without a fight, and it rarely dies off.

In the U.S., the corporate interests fully own-- "fully" is different from 99%-- one political party, the Republicans, and have made tremendous strides toward taking complete ownership of the other one, the Democratic Party, ostensibly the one that represents ordinary working families but, under the disingenuous guise of a "big tent" has sold its ass to Wall Street and corporate America. 

Just yesterday Digby reassured us that centrism, the polite way of talking about corporate whores in certain circles, is intact despite the retirement from Congress of Blue Dog multimillionaire Jane Harman and the demise of the insidious, corporately funded Democratic Leadership Council. "The truth of the matter," she wrote, "is that the DLC's function has been taken over by Third Way. Nobody needs to fear that the centrists aren't going to be well represented in the Democratic Party. They run the place." 

In fact, "centrist" Heath Shuler (he's actually a C Street extreme-right-wing religionist, a once and future Republican in control of the shriveled-but-far-from-defanged Blue Dog Caucus) has been working overtime to undercut Nancy Pelosi-- and, with a helping hand from conservative ex-Blue Dog Steve Israel, currently chairman of the DCCC, recruit lots of anti-choice, anti-union, anti-gay, anti-equality, anti-consumer conservatives to run in the districts that rejected this same type of "centrist" in November. 

Corporate Central wins no matter who wins when a Blue Dog faces a Republican. And American families lose. I hope you won't consider me too crass for pointing out that Blue America, which helped end the political career of the worst Blue Dog in Congress last year, Bobby Bright (AL), is still fighting Blue Dogs and could sure use some help. $5, $10, $20 contributions will help us go up against the millions corporate America is funneling into Third Way's and Health Shuler's operations. They are counting on making sure Blue Dogs dominate the Democratic primaries next year so that Democratic voters have no choice in November of 2012. We're determined to fight that scenario.

Bill Clinton-- Come Back Kid As The Payback Kid

It wasn't for naught that Bill Clinton was chairman of the virulently anti-populist/pro-corporate Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) in 1990 and 1991, a position that has also been held by such anti-working family, corporate shills as John Breaux (LA), Joe Lieberman (CT), Evan Bayh (IN) and, most recently, Harold Ford (TN). The DLC was founded on the premise that economic populism can't work in America and that universal health care is not right for this country. Their hallmark positions have been cracking down on welfare, union-busting "free" trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA and privatization of Social Security.

Clinton was far from my first choice when he ran for president in 1992. Although reactionary Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey ran to the right of him, Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas, Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and former California Governor Jerry Brown all seemed like better choices than the Republican-lite Clinton. When George H.W. Bush managed to lose the election, he left Clinton NAFTA to ram through Congress. Clinton assigned Rahm Emanuel to rope in enough Democrats to pass the odious legislation and Emanuel bribed and threatened enough House members-- just as he's now doing for the Frankenstein bill known as the War Supplemental (which includes a suicidal $108 billion bailout for European banks). NAFTA passed 234-200, 102 Democrats roped in by Emanuel joining the 132 Republicans who favored it.

Since leaving office, Clinton's forays into Democratic Party electoral politics have served as something like a contrary indicator. He constantly involves himself in battles between reactionaries and progressives and, reverting to form, he always takes the side of the less progressive candidate. Last week we looked at his campaign against heroic progressive Jennifer Brunner in Ohio. Yesterday Politico's Alexander Burns looked at Clinton's interference in several primaries across the country-- always on the side of Establishment figures with corporate support, never on the side of grass roots candidates who stand with working families. Burns advances the theory that Clinton is primarily helping Democrats who supported his wife against Obama, a facile and naive assessment that only tells one part of the story.

His massive and ineffectual support for Virginia loser Terry McAuliffe fits both categories, of course. McCauliffe is a longtime Clinton family operative and was certainly the candidate of corporate America. Support for Kendrick Meek in Florida also fits both categories, a Clinton loyalist and corporate shill running-- at least when Clinton was campaigning for him-- against a grass roots progressive Dan Gelber who has since decided to run for Florida Attorney General instead. Ohio Lt. Governor Lee Fisher, like Meek, is a corporate-friendly moderate, facing a family-friendly progressive. Of course Clinton's raising money for Fisher. Clinton also helped one of the most right-wing, GOP-backing congressman in the country, North Carolina Blue Dog Heath Shuler, raise money for a Senate race that Shuler has since backed out of.

Clinton is also campaigning for corporately financed Kirsten Gillibrand in the New York Senate primary where she is likely to face at least two more progressive candidates, Jonathan Tasini, the Wellstone Democrat we spoke with yesterday, and Carolyn Maloney. Tasini challenged Hillary Clinton in her last primary race but Maloney was also a Clinton booster.

In Pennsylvania Clinton has a long-standing relationship with the grassroots-backed Joe Sestak but Clinton won't support him because he's up against a far more conservative opponent, Arlen Specter, backed by Clinton's Establishment allies (corporate Democrats Ed Rendell and Joe Biden) and many of the corporate donors who have fueled the Clinton political machine.

Yesterday the kids over at FDL were talking about another Democratic wanker without a fraction of the kind of clout Bill Clinton has, Heather Hurlbutt the so-called Executive Director of the so-called National Security Network. Jane Hamsher: "There's a special place in hell for think tanks that set themselves up to suck up donations from rich donors for the sole purpose of wrapping imperialist foreign policy in progressive rhetoric." No doubt Hurlbutt is sucking up to lots of undiscerning middle of the road donors-- and to Rahm Emanuel who clearly encouraged her to write cheerlead a defense of the Administration's offensive Frankenstein Supplemental Budget. I've heard all her points all week-- straight from Rahm's office-- word for word-- to the wavering congressmen he's trying to get to sign on to the Great 2010 Democratic Party Suicide Pact.

With the fateful VP e-mail from Obama HQ likely to arrive at any minute now, here are my more or less final thoughts on the selection process

Is Evan Bayh really the best Obama can come up with?

by Ken

I have a feeling that the basic things I have to say about this whole vice presidential business are very much the same things you've been saying, starting with the basic question:

What the [expletive] is going on here?

I shudder even to run through the names. Sam Nunn? That egomaniacal homophobic right-wing hack? (And those are his better qualities.) Tim Kaine?? Ann Fergawdsakes Veneman???

For a while we were hearing the name of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who is still more conservative than I'd like and seems to be a soporific speaker (aren't we hoping for a candidate who can breathe some fire on the campaign trail?). But in this company, she seems like a giant.

And then of course -- no matter how much we may wish to duck him -- there's the inevitable, inescapable, and unspeakable Evan Bayh.

Evan Bayh???? Evan Bayh????? Evan Bayh??????

If you look up "empty suit" in the dictionary, you'll find Evan Bayh's picture there -- or you would if there were anything there to photograph. (You've probably heard Stephen Colbert's line from the other night, that he looks like the guy who came with the picture frame.) But no, our Evan is worse than an empty suit. He represents the New Generation of triangulating political sludge epitomized by the likes of DLC founder Al From and all-around superschmuck Holy Joe Lieberman. What little our Evan seems to have done tends to register in the negative column. Most notably, when George W. Bush and his band of war-mongering sociopaths were lying the country into the invasion of Iraq, our Evan didn't just vote for it. The drooling jackass cosponsored the resolution. An authentic do-nothing might be an upgrade.

Evan Bayh is, in other words, everything that's wrong with our political system short of actually being a Republican, which in many ways, looking at his voting record, he might as well be. Among DLC types, the technical term for this systematic betrayal of the people's interests is "bipartisanship." Holy Joe Lieberman fobs himself off as a prince of bipartisanship. But of course in the real world what they mean by "bipartisanship" is having the courage to do whatever those other guys want us to.

The true DLC-er has achieved Nirvana when he can lay claim to being almost as good a Republican as the wingnuttiest real Republican. The question these DLC types never seem to answer, or perhaps ask, is why anyone would vote for their version of crypto-Republicans when there's such an abundance of the genuine article to vote for?

But even that's old-school talk -- talk left over from the bad old days of 2000, 2002, 2004. Isn't 2008 supposed to be the year when it's virtual political death to be caught being a Republican in public? When those poor GOP sumbitches forced to run for reelection are running from their party as fast as their stumpy little legs will carry them?

There are people who hold it against our Evan that he's the son of a former U.S. senator from Indiana. They say our Evan has built his career on the mere fact of being his father's son.

As best I can tell, those people are right, of course, but I truly don't blame our Evan for being his father's son. What I blame him for is being a disgrace to the family name.

I have fond memories and especially a lot of fond feeling for Birch Bayh. Perhaps it had something to do with my being a recent transplant from the Midwest, in the advancing stages of early political consciousness, when he was elected to the Senate in 1962. John Kennedy was the still-new president, and while he wasn't getting all that much accomplished in Congress -- thanks to the obstruction of the immovable bloc of Dixiecrats, who still pretended to be Democrats -- still, it seemed that constructive change was possible. And even as things started going to hell with the assassination of the president, important progress was being made, and Bayh always seemed to me to be in the thick of it. Maybe not my political hero, exactly, but a supremely honorable political role model. Definitely one of the good guys.

To be honest, I've wondered over the years -- especially contemplating the grim nullity of the new-model Senator Bayh -- whether I've romanced the memory of the elder Bayh. Was he perhaps not the person I thought he was? I was young, after all, and perhaps easily impressed.

Even if I hadn't been too lazy to do the homework myself, I'm not sure I would have wanted to dig into Birch Bayh's record, for fear of what I might find. So I'm doubly grateful to my colleague Steve Clemons for doing the work for me. In a recent post on his blog, The Washington Note, Steve wrote:

Here's why I like Bayh the father so much and why he sets a standard for leadership that we should be comparing others to:

~ In 1962, narrowly won a Senate race in a big time red state against a Republican incumbent in 1962 through a "dynamic grassroots campaign"

~ helped draft and pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act

~ led the effort to defeat Nixon's appointment of two segregationist judges -- Clement Hanyesworth and Harrold Carswell -- to the Supreme Court

~ earned a place on the Nixon "enemies list" (I still am an avid fan, however, of Nixon's foreign policy -- and many of his domestic policies)

~ drafted and helped secure passage of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution establishing rules for presidential and vice-presidential succession

~ drafted and helped secure passage of the 26th Amendment lowering the voting age in the nation to 18 from 21 years of age

~ by drafting and passing two Amendments to the Constitution, Birch Bayh became the first American to author more than one amendment since the Founding Fathers

~ helped sponsor and nearly passed the Equal Rights Amendment that narrowly failed to secure ratification by the states

~ authored and helped secure passage of Title IX of the Higher Education Act that prohibited discrimination on the basis of gender in the classroom and athletic field

~ authored the original Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)

~ He was a co-author of the Bayh-Dole Act which allowed US universities, small businesses, and non-profit organizations to retain intellectual property rights of inventions developed from federal government-funded research -- probably one of the most significant triggers of new university-based innovation in US history

~ after leaving the Senate, served as Founding Chairman of the Institute Against Prejudice and Violence, which laid the original ground work for hate-crimes legislation that eventually became law

~ and today serves on the Advisory Board and is working hard to get states to pass legislation that would bind their electoral college votes to the outcomes of the national popular vote. In other words, Bayh is trying to make individual votes matter and is attempting to neutralize the electoral college

Of course I'm sharing this material and reminding people of Birch Bayh's leadership in part because his son, Senator Evan Bayh, might be the next Vice President. Others might end up in that spot either with Obama -- or, alternative, John McCain may win which means a different cast could be up for Cheney's newly crafted VP perks.

But Evan Bayh's father sculpted a pattern of principled leadership in the Senate that should be noted -- and it's the kind of results he achieved that are what should be saluted and what Obama, McCain, Evan Bayh, Kaine, Sibelius, Pawlenty, Biden, Hagel and others should be measured against.

Steve explains that he had a chance to interact with Birch Bayh (who turned 80 this past January) over the last year when Steve helped moderate a series of four Senate Colloquies at Washington College with Bayh and former Senators Gary Hart (D-CO), Paul Laxalt (R-NV), and Dale Bumpers (D-AR) and current Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN).

"My role was to keep the sessions moving and to provoke discussion and responses," Steve writes, "but it was Birch Bayh who provided the foundation for these discussions because of his own love for the legislative machinery of government and his mastery of policy and political success -- even when the cards were frequently stacked against him and the causes he fought for."

Now one thing we can't say, at least not casually, is that Birch Bayh proved that it's possible to maintain liberal principles in a conservative state and still be not only elected but reelected. Well, he did, up to a point -- he did serve three terms in the Senate. But it's not as if he retired. He lost his bid for reelection in the Reagan landslide year of 1980. And he was defeated by, of all people, Dan Quayle, a primitive humanoid life form who makes Birch's boy Evan look, comparatively, merely empty-suit-ish.

Still, Birch Bayh served those 18 years in the Senate with distinction. And when he went down, he went down with his principles more or less whole. What, after all, would be the point of continuing to be reelected if there was, well, no point in being reelected? Has political principle become that disposable? And even after Bayh was defeated, as Steve Clemons notes, he found ways of continuing to serve the public interest.

I've heard it suggested that Senator Obama is considering the wrong Bayh for his running mate. I've also heard it suggested that Evan Bayh would make a more appropriate running for mate for Obama's GOP opponent, Young Johnny McCranky. What can I say? You hear things. And speaking of things you hear, isn't our Evan supposed to have been at or near the top of Hillary Clinton's VP list too? What is it with these people?

But one thing I know: When I and a whole lot of people I know or merely encounter online have the identical response to the recent talk that the pride of Delaware, Sen. Joe Biden, is suddenly hot 'n' heavy in the Obama VP mix, namely that he doesn't sound half bad, you know we've been conditioned to some painfully low expectations.

In the end, it may not matter much. In regard to his vice presidential powers as in so many other respects, "Big Dick" Cheney is, mercifully, an aberration. It seems pretty certain that we'll never have another VP like that. (A lot more certain than that we'll never have another president like our Chimpy the Prez.) Is Young Johnny that much better?) In reality, the VP has exactly as much policy influence as the president wants him to. It's still the president's show.

I don't even believe that the running mate helps the presidential candidate win states he might not otherwise. It just doesn't happen. People simply don't vote for a vice president. They may well vote against a vice presidential nominee, however, and that's normally the top guy's principal concern: to find someone who doesn't cost him votes.

It is true, though, that the choice tells us something about the chooser -- about both his politics and his character. The VP does, after all, have to be prepared to step into the top job, and while it's understandable that a presidential candidate doesn't want to be overshadowed by his running mate, just as a president can't allow himself to be overshadowed by his vice president (again, the example of the aberrant Cheney-Bush regime doesn't apply), we can fairly ask whether the presidential candidate is offering us someone worthy of the office.

I still cling to the hope that all the talk we've been hearing about Democratic vice presidential possibilities is a smokescreen, that the very fact that these people are being talked about so much publicly is a giveaway that they're really not being seriously considered privately. I have to cling to that hope, because otherwise I have to wonder: Are the people who we're told have been receiving serious consideration by the Obama team not the sorriest damned bunch of nobodies in tarnation?

The Democratic talent pool isn't that shallow. I still don't know why retired Gen. Wes Clark isn't being considered. And there are interesting governors in addition to Governor Sebelius, like Ted Strickland of Ohio [right] and Brian Schweitzer of Montana. For that matter, there's always Hillary, whom a lot of primary voters judged to be of presidential caliber.

But when we sigh a collective sigh of relief at the thought of friggin' Joe Biden, you know that we've been conditioned to set our sights really, really low.


UPDATE: HELP OBAMA SELECT HIS RUNNING MATE

Firedoglake is running a poll today. Wes Clark is way out ahead-- but Hillary isn't doing badly. Bayh... well even Republican Chuck Hagel has more votes than he does. Currently he's tied with elderly Dixiecrat Sam Nunn. -- Howie

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There Are Democrats And Then There Are Democrats... Take Bruce Lunsford For Example

Not all Udalls are equal

Lately I've has a lot of calls from friends of Bruce Lunsford. Some are Democratic Party insiders and some are genuine Kentucky grassroots activists. Generally they go like this: "Yeah, yeah, Lunsford is a nightmare and will vote like a Republican half the time, but the idea of getting rid of Mitch McConnell overshadows any other consideration. And, after all, McConnell votes like a Republican 100% of the time; half the time Lunsford may be with us."

My heart goes out to Kentucky activists who can almost smell McConnell's defeat. I want to smell McConnell's rotting political corpse as well. But Lunsford? First off, "half the time" is very arbitrary. Maybe Lunsford will vote with the Democrats 40% of the time or 60% of the time or, like Tim Johnson (D-SD) 39.57% of the time when it really counts. But, let's assume that Lunsford votes just like arch-conservative Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska, an overly generous supposition based on what Lunsford has been all about politically. That means he'll vote with Democrats on most housekeeping and non-controversial bills and with the Republicans on many of the really keys issues that matter most to working families and people concerned about civil liberties and the future of our nation. Better than Mitch McConnell? Unquestionably. But there's more to it than that.

McConnell doesn't subvert progressive values and principles from within the Democratic Party and move it inexorably rightward. Ben Nelson does. Zell Miller and Lieberman used to. Mary Landrieu, Mark Pryor, Tim Johnson, Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln, Tom Carper, Ken Salazar, Max Baucus can usually be counted on to shill for Big Business interests and pull the Democratic caucus rightward away from positions that are family-friendly. That's exactly what Lunsford will do doing.

This morning's CongressDaily has a story by Darren Goode called "Centrists Might Be Moving Party Leaders." Goode buys into the Beltway definitions of "centrists" and fails to see that what the reactionaries he's writing about are actually just pulling Democrats further away from populist and progressive stands. Otherwise, it's a good story-- except that he stains to prove-- with no evidence whatsoever-- that Republican "moderates" (mainstream conservatives) are also moving GOP extremists towards the center. They're not.

House and Senate coalitions of centrists that were formed to work on compromise plans on gas prices were built on growing frustration among the rank and file-- and voters-- over political gamesmanship employed by party leaders.

This might be leading to more access for these members to party leaders in the debate. House Speaker Pelosi met Tuesday with a group of oil-patch Democrats who recently voted against her "use-it-or-lose-it" plan targeting a lack of production on existing federal areas open for oil and gas production.

She met later in the day with a partially overlapping batch of Blue Dog Coalition members on how they could support a revamped use-it-or-lose-it package heading to the floor Thursday.

"I've seen a shift in leadership," said Texas Rep. Gene Green, who heads an informal batch of oil-patch Democrats and was among those who met with Pelosi Tuesday. "And I'd like to see even more of a shift."

So what is Goode extolling? That a bunch of bought off Democrats whose careers are financed by Big Oil can force Pelosi to bend to the will of Republican grandees? The use-it-or-lose-it bill, sponsored by Natural Resources Chairman Nick Rahall (D-WV) was defeated when virtually all Republicans were joined by the treacherous, bribed Blue Dogs.

I can certainly understand local voters casting their ballots against the worst servants of the Military Industrial Complex and against the authors of so much of the economic misfortune that has befallen our country. But, remember, it isn't just Republicans who fall into those categories. The attack on Iraq was a bipartisan affair-- even if a majority of House Democrats-- voted against it (while a majority of Senate Democrats voted for it). Democrats control both houses of Congress and the war rages on. Why? Because there are enough Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- the DLC and the Blue Dogs basically-- who consistently vote with the GOP on substantive matters. Bush's contemptible and neo-fascist FISA bill-- giving him the right to spy on American citizens-- read our e-mails, listen to our calls-- without any kind of supervision or court order, would never have been given any serious consideration, let alone passed into law, without the active connivance of Democratic leaders who have been paid off-- gigantically-- by the Telecom industry. Of course the main target of the telecoms giants' bribes was John McCain ($365,955) but, not counting presidential candidates, the biggest telecom bribe takers were Senator jay Rockefeller (D-WV- $51,500), who led the battle in the Senate for retroactive immunity, and Congressman Rahm Emanuel ($49,950), who was able to bully enough Democrats-- reminiscent of his actions during the NAFTA debate-- to vote with the Republicans to pass the single worst piece of legislation to come out of this disgraceful Congress. Do we want more of this kind of "bipartisanship?" Or do we want brave and courageous independent-minded leaders who will stand up for American values and ideals-- men and women like Russ Feingold, Chris Dodd, Carol Shea-Porter, Tom Udall, Tom Allen...?

If you have all the money in the world to donate to candidates, I guess it makes sense to donate to reactionaries like Lunsford with the rationale that he's better than McConnell. But that would be premised on having maxed out to real Democrats first-- and their are hundreds of them. Or let's put it another way. The Udall cousins are both in the House and each is running against an extreme right wing lunatic for the Senate, Tom Udall in New Mexico and Mark Udall in Colorado. I want to see both the crazy neo-fascist Republicans lose. But Tom voted against FISA and has taken up the cause of defending constitutional government. Mark voted with the Republicans and has taken up the cause of abandoning principles to get elected. Who you think deserves support more?

FISA RETROACTIVE IMMUNITY: OBAMA CAN LEAD-- AND HE CAN LEAD NOW

Blind follower/visionary leader? We hope so

-by Matthew Grimm

Something's been bugging me, and I know I'm not the first one to raise it, but as Barack Obama essays gracefully to the status of presumptive nominee, I think it's worth asking again: Could our would-be leader maybe lead on something, y'know, vital towards saving the republic he wants to and we need him to save? Like maybe start with the thing he vows in the oath of office I would genuinely like to see him take Jan. 20, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States?

You want to look presidential, Mr. Obama, now would be the time, because, see, you've pretty much won the bully pulpit and you have already taken that same oath. For a candidacy so recently bombarded by the quibbling, ugly, Rovian sophistry, the opportunity to show yourself on the side of the angels would seem no more evident than the current FISA fight.

Yet every goddamn day I see hints and dark clouds of Steny Hoyer conspiring with turncoat Blue Dogs to become accessories after the fact, helping Bush suspend the rule of law and grant giant corporations super-citizen status. I've gotten calls-to-action from every list in the progressive netroots community, warning me of a deal afoot to grant the potential RICO-targets at AT&T and Verizon retroactive immunity on abetting the Bush administration’s spying on US citizens. They have broken the law, egregiously and with ample, expensive legal counsel to make it aforethought, and rogue collaborationists in "our" own party are ready to cede just that little bit more of principle seperating us from the darkness, to rubberstamp a sell-out Senate bill that Obama voted against.

So I respectfully bid the candidate: lead.

The progressive netroots did their jobs the last round, bombarding their congressmen with calls and emails, pleas and demands to hold the country fast to its Constitution. We will do it again, of course, but now as then, we could use a champion, y'know, one whose every words ring loud and clear into mainstream political dialogue, who has publicly pledged himself to bring government back to the people from whom it has been hijacked, even if that seems a bit heady for the pabulum that passes for political reporting..

On a day when Politico is reporting, as Howie has already covered, that Hoyer and his Vichy Dem fellow travelers are entertaining "proposed immunity language by the telecoms"-- awesome, let's bring Manson in to help draft new qualifications for justifiable homicide-- I've watched five hours of MSNBC today and heard nary a word mentioned on the subject. I have seen a report that Obama has sat down with the vile, posturing Blue Dogs, something or other about him courting them as superdelegates, but nary a mention of how this critical issue, and their intransigent defense of corporate malfeasance, weighed into the conversation.

The dullards who pass for mainstream media journalists naturally will argue that this is too arcane, too Inside Baseball, an issue, and better to let the national prattle be about use of the word "bitter" and somebody's goddamn preacher and some preposterous, contrived cart-before-the-horse metric called "electability." This is where a plainspoken voice, with ample microphones tilted towards it, can cut through such bullshit and make it simple and clear how the FISA bill lands on the doorstep of every American who doesn't get super-citizen status and who doesn't go along with draconian agendas for the war profiteering involved. Retroactive immunity for the telecoms is nothing more or less than laissez-faire taken to the Republican wet-dream of where their archaic economic dogma supersedes the Constitution.

There would seem to be no more prescient test as to Obama's commitment to his contention, here in Iowa in November and since (as featured on his own website), that "I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over," and to come squarely down on the side of people versus power.

What evinces exactly that other than AT&T and Verizon printing their own get-out-of-jail-free cards?

Look, we understand why Clinton hasn't rung in on this, and it's why progressives have long been wary of her, which is, like the Blue Dogs, she is a fucking right-wing politician-- what with the wholecloth-fabricated populism amid the reams of corporate money and "obliterating Iran" and all. Yes, she voted against the Bush-friendly Senate FISA bill, like Obama, which given her present company can easily be read as pandering for actual democratic Democrat votes, at least before she called us all bullying radical weirdos. Let's go over to the website of the Democratic Leadership Council, where she sits as chair of the DLC American Dream Initiative, and see where her most concentrated block of "New Democrat" cronies stand on the issue. According to Jim Arkedis of the deceptively-named Progressive Policy Institute, the DLC's propaganda arm:

"House members shouldn't be intimidated by pressure groups who view the FISA bill's immunity clause as a litmus test on respect for civil liberties. It's not. Rather, it is an over-emphasized aspect of a broad bill that could constructively define the rules of signals intelligence collection in the 21st century. This bill represents an excellent opportunity for House members to strengthen their civil-liberties credentials by supporting a law that improves and clarifies the standards for intelligence collection.

By "pressure groups," Arkedis meant progressive Democrats, the kind in the netroots and in the Congress that stood up to the quisling House FISA bill the DLC advocated , and by "an excellent opportunity for House members to strengthen their civil-liberties creditentials" he apparently is just engaging in outright Orwellianism. Slavery is freedom. Destroy that Fourth Amendment to save it, Jim.

No, here’s what telecom immunity comes down to: somebody gets überequal status under the law, by dint of being incorporated in Delaware.

This is indeed the "old politics" Obama has railed against. This is where he should be walking the talk, and where he can prove his intentions to make politics more than just "politics," but what it should be, elegant, reasoned debate that helps us participate in the great question of the time, whether we are to be governed by ourselves or by our legally codified betters.

HELP BLUE AMERICA DECIDE WHAT TO DO ABOUT DEMOCRATS WHO VOTE LIKE REPUBLICANS

Mary Landrieu: Hopelessly bad instincts?

Yesterday we celebrated that the Democratic leadership in the House was able to hold nearly the whole caucus together to pass an updated FISA law stripping out Bush's absurd and venal demands for retroactive immunity. And they managed to do that even after nearly two dozen of them had written a letter to the Speaker telling her that they demanded the opportunity to go on record in favor of retroactive immunity. Only 12 Democrats voted with the Republicans and half of them did so to protest that the bill was still too weighted in favor of the Bush Regime's unconstitutional agenda.

For those of us who follow the foibles of treacherous reactionary Democrats-- the Blue Dogs and Bush Dogs-- all the names are familiar: David Boren (D-OK), Chris Carney (D-PA), Jim Cooper (D-TN), Tim Holden (D-PA), Nick Lampson (D-TX), and Heath Shuler (D-NC). Last time I checked, out of the 6 Bush Dogs who had signed the original letter to Pelosi that we were asking the community to vote on so we could target one district for an educational campaign, Carney and Shuler were coming in, respectively, #1 and #2. The 4 others fled from retroactive immunity in terror. Our experience with Blue Dogs and Blue Dogs is that when you roll up a magazine and smack them firmly in the snout and then rub said snout in their mess, they eventually learn. We were very successful in assisting our pals in the House leadership to convince some banditos to get back on the reservation when it came to S-CHIP last year. Once conservative Democrats like Leonard Boswell and Jim Marshall, who normally act as though being bipartisan means rubber stamping every diktat that comes down the pike from Pennsylvania Avenue, starting speaking in favor of the House bill, the Republicans knew the gig was up.

But what the DLC and Republicans (and most Blue Dogs) want is a bill that caves to all Bush's demands for warrantless wiretaps and retroactive immunity, basically, the shameful bill the Senate passed last month 68-29. What happens now is a conference with the Senate to hammer out a compromise. So why did almost all the Blue Dogs support the House bill today? They know it will never become law. Even if it ever managed to pass the Senate-- almost impossible-- Bush has vowed to veto it. So what happened? Sources in the House tell me that Pelosi, Hoyer and Emanuel promised the Blue Dogs that they would be on the reconciliation committee wit the Senate charged with hammering out a compromise.

The Senate bill overturns the rule of law by granting probable criminals retroactive immunity. The House bill doesn't. The Senate bill is fine with warrantless wiretaps. The House bill isn't. In the Senate 18 Democrats voted with the Republicans and Lieberman to grant retroactive immunity and to enshrine warrantless wiretaps into law. Almost none are up for re-election this year. The exceptions are Mark Pryor of Arkansas (who has no primary or general election challenger), Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and, leader of the bad Democrats on this, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia. What should our community do about this?

An article in yesterday's Hill makes it clear that reactionary Democrats running amuck isn't just a problem the blogosphere is frustrated about. The Democratic leadership has to grapple with these Blue Dogs and Bush Dogs everyday.

House Appropriations Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) said Friday he canceled meetings with a New Orleans delegation because a Louisiana lawmaker had defied party leadership on a procedural vote the night before.

And he’s warning others who do the same thing that they’ll get the same treatment.

“When people are consistently hitting the red button on procedural votes, that gets to me,” Obey said in an interview.

“I announced yesterday in caucus that anybody who wants to routinely vote against the leadership on procedural grounds, don’t ask me to see their visiting firemen when they’re in town.”

It's worse in the Senate, much, much worse. Maybe we can help, though. It will be painful but let's talk about holding one really terrible Democrat in the Senate accountable in November, especially if she votes to rubber stamp retroactive immunity again (as expected). Discussion today at FDL, 11am (PT).

DAN GERSTEIN ISN'T JUST A TROJAN-- HE MAY WELL BE A TROJAN HORSE

"I remember people would say, ‘For once I would like to vote for the perfect candidate.’ I said, ‘You know, I had that experience once.’ I once voted for the perfect candidate. But by the time I ran for re-election, that wasn’t true anymore."

-Barney Frank (D-MA)

Take nothing at face value when it comes to treacherous hacks like Gerstein or his odious master, Lieberman

I voted for Barack Obama, far from a perfect candidate. I like the hope he represents but I voted for him because he's a slightly better candidate, in my mind, than Hillary Clinton. Her voting record is marginally better than his but they are both in the same ballpark on most important issues. Compare either to McCain and it isn't even close. McCain is a radical right ideologue with a long voting record that is as clear as day: his would be a third George W. Bush term, possibly even worse than Bush's two because of his truly unsuitable personal make up. Hillary and Obama look around equal to me, a couple of B-candidates compared to an F-candidate. Maybe she's a B-minus overall; he's not a B-plus, at least not on policy issues. In the end I just judged him more electable and reasoned that nothing is as important as stopping the reactionary Republicans from continuing to undermine all that is great and honorable about our country. I have no illusions about Obama; he is, after all, a man who chose Joe Lieberman, one of the most disgraceful characters in American politics as his Senate mentor.

Hillary and Obama have both run with a bad crowd of Insider Democrats, although on that count, one only needs look at who runs her campaign to start feeling uncomfortable about which corporate Republican-like self servers she would be appointing to fill out her administration. Is he as bad? Frankly, I'm not certain. The DLC, which represents the reactionary and corporate wing of the Democratic Party, is supporting him, according to a story today by Big Tent Democrat at Talk Left.

I'm not so sure that's exactly accurate. I suspect the DLC would prefer Hillary and be fine with Obama (even though a couple years ago he demanded they remove his name from their website). Still, there are certainly some DLC-swine on the Obama bandwagon, and probably more than just Lieberman shill Dan Gerstein (who just a few days ago was billing himself as neutral in the presidential race; all he cared about was that someone beat that unruly populist John Edwards).

The flurry of reports about Gerstein supporting Obama strikes me as somewhat odd. His most recent twisted and repugnant Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal made me think that his hysterical and uncontrollable hatred for grassroots Democrats would have him following Lieberman into the GOP. Where did this meme of Gerstein being an Obama supporter come from? Hugh Hewitt and Bill Bennett created it on their Hate Talk radio show where only a hack like Gerstein would even appear. Gerstein claims he "voted with Obama," and I assume that means he claims he voted for Obama. But it still sounds like a set-up to me and he certainly repeated right-wing anti-Obama talking points during the interview. My guess is that Gerstein will be in bed with McCain in no time at all.


UPDATE: AND WHEN GERSTEIN'S IDEOLOGICAL TWIN FINISHES IN CONNECTICUT...

Maybe he'll want to make believe he's an Obama supporter too. Reactionary Democrat Harold Ford, last year's only major Democratic loser-- since voters couldn't tell he was a Democrat by his positions-- has been up in Connecticut campaigning for rubber stamp Republican Chris Shays. Lieberman is also expected to formally endorse Shays. Jane:

Someone should let Ford know that the "D" in DLC is a passing reference to "Democrat."

You can donate to the Jim Himes campaign here.

WHO YOU CALLIN' A CENTRIST?

Harold Ford burnishes his "moderate" credentials-- loses TN senate seat but wins DLC chair

Nothing gets me crazier than when I'm with a bunch of really smart progressives and they start using the reactionary frame of calling right-wing Democrats like Harold Ford or Joe Lieberman or Ben Nelson "moderate." They're not moderate; they're the extreme right-wing of the Democratic Party; well, Lieberman isn't part of the Democratic Party but he was the extreme right of it before Connecticut voters tossed him out. The others, along with many DLC and Blue Dog members, are. In a day and age when members' entire voting record is easily accessible, there is not reason to call someone like Jim Marshall (D-GA) or Chris Carney (D-PA) or Dan Boren (OK), Boyd Allen (FL), Gene Taylor (D-MS), Bud Cramer (AL), John Barrow (D-GA), Heath Shuler (D-NC), Al Wynn (D-MD) or Dan Lipinski (D-IL) a moderate. Well, there is one reason: you accept the radical right's frame of political polarity.

Yesterday George Lakoff went to town on the whole idea with a short piece called No Center, No Centrists. I love the way he began: "'Centrism' is the creation of an inaccurate self-serving metaphor, and it is time to bury it." Let me get the shovels, please.

There is no left to right linear spectrum in the American political life. There are two systems of values and modes of thought — call them progressive and conservative (or nurturant and strict, as I have). There are total progressives, who use a progressive mode of thought on all issues. And total conservatives. And there are lots of folks who are what I've called "biconceptuals": progressive on certain issue areas and conservative on others. But they don't form a linear scale.

...American ideas are fundamentally progressive ideas-- the ideas this country was founded on and that carry forth that spirit. Progressives care about people and the earth, and act with responsibility and strength on that care.

The progressive view of government is simple. Progressive government has two aspects: protection and empowerment. Protection is far more than the military, police, and fire departments. It includes consumer protection, worker protection, environmental protection, public health, food and drug safety; social security, and other safety nets. It also includes protection from the government itself, and hence a balance of powers, openness, fundamental rights, and so on.

Empowerment include roads and bridges; public education; government-developed communications like the internet and satellite communications systems; the banking system; the SEC and institutions that make a stock market possible, and the court system, mostly about contracts and corporate law. Progressive government makes business possible. No one makes any money in this country without the progressive empowerment by government. A progressive foreign policy is not based solely, or even mainly, on the state-- about the "national interest" defined as our military strength and GDP. Progressive foreign policy focuses on individual people's interests as well as national interests: on poverty, disease, refugees, education, women's and children's issues, public health, and so on.

Lakoff explains that using the frame of some kind of phoney-baloney "center," is an attempt to make progressives look like non-mainstream kooks and extremists. Glenn Smith takes the argument further-- and right to the heart of reactionary Democratic politics, the DLC, a corporate interest group deep Inside the Beltway Democratic Establishment. The call themselves "moderate" and "centrists" to marginalize the progressive heart of the Democratic Party to better serve the interests of their corporate (and Republican) paymasters. In their world, Rahm Emanuel, Harold Ford and Joe Lieberman is where it's at; Howard Dean and the grassroots Democratic wing of the Democratic Party are a threat. They don't represent values, only strategies and self-interest. And, as Lakoff reminds us, "Their concentration on laundry lists of policies rather than vision, values, and passion has not helped the Democrats electorally."

The reason the DLC has been attacking progressives, Smith argues, is that DLC members have major conservative values and are threatened by the progressive base. Some of those values are financial: Wall Street, the HMO's and drug companies, agribusiness, developers, the oil companies, and international corporations that benefit from trade agreements, outsourcing, cheap labor abroad, and practices that harm indigenous populations but bring profits. A powerful motivation for the party has been that, if they take such positions, they, like the Republicans, can get big money contributions from Wall Street.

But there is more involved here than money. The DLC seems also to share the foreign policy idea that we should be maximizing our "national interest"-- our military strength, economic wealth (measured by GDP), and global political clout (presumably coming from economic and military clout). This is opposed to a foreign policy that maximizes the well-being of people, both at home and abroad.

But worst of all, the DLC has been cowed by the conservatives. They have drunk the conservative Kool-Aid. As Harold Ford intimated in his debate with Markos Moulitsas: To win you have be a hawk on foreign policy, a social conservative on abortion and gay marriage, and not raise taxes. Nonsense.

Even worse, Ford is suggesting that those in the party who don't hold those views say that they do. There's a name for someone who goes against his principles to pander for votes. It's not a nice name.

In all the commentary about that debate, an important aspect has gone without comment. Markos certainly bested Ford. But to do so, he also had to best the moderator, David Gregory, who insisted on using the conservative-tainted word "liberal." Over and over, Markos resisted Gregory's frames. Gregory was not using Markos' frames and Markos insisted on his own.

It is important to stand up to the DLC, and to the idea that there is a unitary mainstream center, that they are it, and that progressives are extremists and deserve to be marginalized.

Bob Fertik of Democrats.com is advocating a practical approach to the fake Dems who try to pass themselves off as "moderates" while supporting Bush Regime extremism: primaries. I agree with his premise and if you check out his chart you'll notice a hint or two of some collaboration between us. He talks about Democrats who routinely betray progressive values and backstab mainstream Democratic policies to support Republicans on crucial issues. And he offers alternatives to these fake Dems-- even beyond Donna Edwards' race to unseat Al Wynn and Mark Pera's race to unseat Dan Lipinski. Check out his site and let him know what you think.


UPDATE: THE POST USES THE FRAME TO DESCRIBE THE ODIOUS MARK PENN AS THE NEW KARL ROVE

Everything I just said-- and, more impoirtant, Lakoff just said-- about the insidious nature of the false "centrist" meme, can be summed up in the first paragraph of a column on campaign strategists in today's Washington Post.

The most obvious heir to a position of Karl Rove-like influence is Mark Penn, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's top political adviser. Penn, the rare pollster who is also the chief strategist of a campaign, reinforces some of what liberals do not like about Clinton: He is a centrist who has pushed the New York Democrat to the middle and advised her not to apologize for her vote to authorize the war in Iraq.

Many actual moderate Democrats have shied away from getting behind Hillary's campaign because of the slimy and unscrupulous nature of the Beltway insiders like Penn she has chosen to surround herself with.

REPUBLICANS FLIP, REPUBLICANS FLOP-- RUDY, MITT, BARRASSO, HAROLD FORD

Fox faux Democrat Harold Ford, doesn't qualify as a Republican per se-- although he has always voted like one and his stands on all the important issues of the same are the same as Bush's-- but as Chair of the DLC he's pretty much owned by the same interests that own the GOP. DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas made mincemeat out of a defensive but pathetically exposed Ford on Meet the Press yesterday. Poor Ford is not used to rejection and he was just getting over the fact that he was virtually the only high profile Democrat to lose a Senate race in 2006 when Markos treated his bogus charm offensive with the scorn it merited. Forlorn and depressed over his public humiliation, Ford's press shop is trying to blame his miserable performance on his drunken escapade a few nights before at NYC's most expensive-- and fanciest-- sushi restaurant. Three blondes! Oh my-- but not really and truly a flip flop for Harold, who is a well-known serial philanderer. The flip flop is his claim that he wants to make nice with the grassroots Democrats the DLC has always betrayed and demonized. Not likely to work while he leads a campaign to undermine the Democratic incumbent, Steve Cohen, who won Ford's old House seat in Memphis. It's especially repulsive to real Democrats since the Ford Machine is trying to play on Cohen's support of the Hate Crimes Bill (which all Democrats-- with the exception of the 14 worst reactionary bigots in Congress-- voted for). Ford's allies are pushing a shill, Nikki Tinker, on a platform of reactionary policies and homophobia.

As for the more traditional Republicans, the newly appointed Wyoming Senator, John Barrasso, long rumored to be more than a little light in the loafers, did the ultimate flip flop as he prepares to run for the seat he now holds by appointment: he's announced his engagement... to a woman. That's special-- and it seems to have worked for Congressman McCrery (R-LA).

And speaking of gay Republicans, I mentioned earlier that their hero, Rudy Giuliani, has pulled the rug out from under them. Today's Boston Globe is reporting that Mr. Civil Unions is now in favor of a "much more modest set of rights for gay partners than civil union laws," including the ones he's always favored. Must be getting close to the South Carolina primary. Giuliani also claims he "misspoke when he said he spent as much time, if not more, at Ground Zero" than 9/11 workers. The 9/11 workers didn't appreciate that-- which is why he decided he misspoke. And speaking of misspokes and flip flops, you can't do a story on flip floppin' Republicans without looking into Flip Flop Mitt's latest flip flops.

Yesterday on friendly territory (Fox News Sunday) Romney said he too misspoke. Remember that mornonic remark he made about his sons' doing their duty for America by working for their dad's campaign? And how he equating driving around a $50,000 RV is the wilds of Iowa was roughly equivalent to driving a tank in Al Anbar province? Oops. First he tried the "out of context" defense. But the video showing the context only made it worse-- much worse-- so he switched to the "misspoke" defense. Do you think Fox let him get away with it?

DEMOCRATS LOOK AT WHAT THE DLC HAS TO OFFER-- AND RUN IN THE OTHER DIRECTION... EVEN HILLARY

The DLC stands for something-- but nothing to do with Democrats

All the Democratic presidential hopefuls-- even consummate Insider Hillary Clinton-- will be at the grassroots/netroots YearlyKos convention in Chicago next weekend. When I asked my travel agent to get a friend of mine a hotel room-- "try that awesome place you booked me in a few weeks ago when I went to interview John Laesch," I suggested-- it took her less than 15 minutes to get back to me with the report that every room in that hotel and every hotel like it was solidly booked. It isn't just the presidential candidates and the bloggers. Dozens of candidates for the House, for the Senate, people running for state legislatures... they're all converging on Chicago for YKos.

I bet Nashville wishes they had booked that convention instead of the pathetic DLC convention they got stuck with this weekend. Although Bill Clinton will be there, Hillary knows associating with the reactionary Lieberman/Ford wing of the Democratic Party is toxic. She won't be there (even if her heart will be) and neither will Obama or Edwards.

The ultimate interest group, the DLC is 100% bought and paid for you are a corrupt insider, as unfit for support from grassroots Democrats as any Republican. The corrupt reactionary shill that fronts for the DLC-- along with defeated discredited former right wing Democratic congressman Harold Ford-- is Al From. Instead of weeping that no Democratic candidates will get anywhere near his disreputable conclave, he claims they "
are focused on winning interest group votes... We were organized and always have been the force in the party that looks to the general election and tries to connect the Democratic Party to the mainstream values of the country." Philip Morris? Texaco? Merck? Enron? That's the DLC and that's Al From and Harold Ford and that's exactly the kinds of special interests-- as opposed to the grassroots voters-- Democratic candidates don't want to be associated with.

But there is no question that the energy and passion in the party will be on display in Chicago much more than in Nashville.

"Today, the energy is coming from new voices, new media, new technology and is much more to the left of the DLC," said former California Democratic Chairman and current radio talk show host Bill Press. "Look where the candidates are going. You don't need any further proof than that."

Even Press says the DLC's "time has come and gone"... David Sirota, founder of the Progressive States Network and a longtime foe of the DLC, said the DLC has become "radioactive" to candidates running in Democratic primaries because it only represents 'Washington elites and corporate lobbyists.' He added, 'Now that there is a reinvigorated counter to that-- whether through the Netroots or the unions or environmental groups-- it has lost its ability to dominate the space it exists in.'"

From, while acknowledging that "there will be more passion in Chicago," claims there will be 350 elected officials attending his get together. But he won't tell anyone who they are. The same way Republicans in the KKK or John Birch Society don't want to let non-KKK/non-John Birch Society members know that's their identity group, reactionary Democrats, post-Clinton have now grown reticent to let the cat out of the bag. Harold Ford and Al From and their media hacks can squawk all they want that the DLC is a "centrist" or "moderate" group, but the facts are the facts. The DLC is the extreme right of the Democratic Party. They are pro-war, pro-corporation and wrong on every important issue of the last decade.

In today's NY Times Noam Scheiber, a senior editor of the right-of-center New Republic (often referred to as the New Republican and once a dedicated mouthpiece for the DLC), writes that "Democrats, moderate and liberal, have been bewildered by the group’s post-Clinton agenda. Take, for example, the law passed by Congress in 2005 that makes it harder for ordinary people to declare bankruptcy. The measure’s only obvious beneficiary was the credit-card industry, and most Democrats opposed it. One main exception was a coalition of House members [like Al Wynn] allied with the council. In an implicit rebuke to their Democratic colleagues, these New Democrats declared their support for the bill 'as champions of both personal and fiscal responsibility.' ...Today, the council has almost no constituency within the Democratic Party."

This kind of Lieberman/Clinton triangulation-- trashing Democrats and Democratic values for personal advantage-- no longer plays. As I mentioned earlier today, Glenn Greenwald has a great article at Salon that examines how Beltway Insiders of the media variety twist and distort labels and definitions to keep their fraternity in power-- and to thwart the will of the feared and loathed unwashed masses (the rest of us). It will help you to understand how-- in the face of reality-- the DLC gets to be called "centrist" instead of "reactionary" or "moderate" instead of "right-wing."


UPDATE: IS HILLARY JUST MAKIN' BELIEVE?

BooMan makes a good case that even though she's publicly distancing herself from the reactionary conclave-- and letting her husband reassure the right-wing of the Democratic Party that she's still one of them-- down deep, and not even that deep, Hillary's as much a DLCer as her old pal Lieberman is.

WHY I'M GLAD WE RAISED CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS FOR JOHN HALL LAST YEAR AND NOT NICK LAMPSON

Last night Ken and I were commiserating about how difficult it is to know what the members of the 110th Congress have actually been up to so far. There just haven't been enough votes to see patterns yet. Some of the real progressive stars have started to emerge, like Steve Cohen from Memphis, Carol Shea-Porter from New Hampshire, and Jerry McNerney here in California, for example. But the empirical evidence in terms of votes on tough bills, sponsored legislation, etc is too scanty and inconclusive. Some hints were available from day one when some of the newly elected members ran to join the Blue Dogs and/or Ellen Tauscher's DLC right-wing splinter group, the New Democratic Caucus, while others-- the ones predisposed towards progressive values and ideals-- joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus. But even with choosing up teams, the story is far from complete.

The best way to know who is keeping promises and who is doing a good job, however, is to watch closely... and patiently. Most votes don't tell us much-- other than the all-important fact that every Democrat, no matter how horrible, is better than even the "best" or least monstrous Republican. Today's 9/11 Commission vote in the Senate was important in making the distinction between the Democratic brand and the Republican brand. Every single Democrat voted in favor of approving the bill already overwhelmingly passed in the House as part of Speaker Pelosi's First 100 Hours Agenda. And although a handful of Republicans abandoned their extreme right-wing lunatic leadership to vote with the Democrats-- giving the bill a 60-38 win-- the McConnell's hackish Republican leadership tried to stop the bill from passing. OK, Democrats are better than Republicans-- but this kind of vote tells us nothing about why Max Baucus and Ben Nelson barely are Democrats at all-- and why Joe Lieberman was drummed out of the party-- though not the Insider faction of the party-- entirely.

Something that will probably never make the newspapers happened during the debate, however, that is more revealing. Harry Reid, the Democratic Majority Leader, in summarizing the bill made an off-the-cuff remark, trying to bolster the bill's mainstream appeal-- although the last I saw over 90% of Americans already approved it. "No one can accuse former Congressman Tim Roehmer of being a 'wild-eyed liberal'-- he's a 'moderate' from Indiana..." Thanks Reid, for further pushing Karl Rove's talking points about liberals. We need leaders who know how to think on their feet. Let me quote from today's FDL comments on the matter:

Harry Reid made that statement in order to try to give credibility to the efforts Roehmer contributed behind the scenes in the drafting of this bill, and thus to the bill itself. It's like shooting ducks in a barrel for the Republicans... They must howl with laughter behind closed doors at the pathetic efforts and cluelessness of their Democratic "opposition" in Congress. [Reid also made sure to call the longtime Lieberman/Collins lovefest a 'model' of how the Senate committee chairs and ranking members should collaborate. We simply can't teach that old dog any new tricks.]

Coming on top of Dave Obey's "you idiot liberals" hurled at a wounded Marine's mother, we can see the absolutely disgraceful level of failure to which the Democrats have descended in the propaganda
wars. Harry Reid is simply incapable of absorbing the lessons that Americans have been screaming from the rooftops for years now. It is in one ear, out the other for him. He hasn't the least clue how to sell a message, how to take a stand, how to fight back. Not the least clue.

Today Stoller put up a list of the Blue Dogs who helped sabotage the no attack on Iran clause in the bill Nancy Pelosi has been trying to craft. Although most on the list were the Rahm Emanuel shills like Baron Hill (IN), Tim Mahoney (FL), and Heath Shuler (NC) and the usual suspects, who tend to vote with Republicans almost as much as with Democrats-- Gene Taylor (MS), Mike McIntyre (NC), Jim Marshall (GA), Jim Cooper (TN), Bud Cramer (AL), Dan Boren (OK), John Barrow (GA), Melissa Bean (IL)-- there were some real disappointments as well, freshmen who were supported last year by Blue America and to whom we donated thousands of dollars: Kirsten Gillibrand and Joe Sestak. Lesson learned-- although it may be a very narrow lesson indeed.

That said, I'm damn proud that Blue America supported John Hall in the last cycle-- and relieved we passed on the drumbeat to jump on the Nick Lampson bandwagon. Am I happy to see Lampson representing the Texas seat instead of DeLay or some DeLay clone? No doubts-- not a one. This morning's Hot Line talked about the differences between a progressive Democrat like John Hall and a... well... a less than progressive Democrat, endangered in a red, red district.

Reps. Nick Lampson (D-TX) and John Hall (D-NY) are among 30 Dems who won seats from GOPers in '06, giving their party a 15-seat majority. And for cong. Dems, finding Iraq proposals that lawmakers such as Lampson and Hall will both agree to-- "and that won't imperil their support back home-- is vital in their hopes of retaining power" in '08.

Lampson says that he would not vote for any measure that 'constrains' Bush's ability to wage war. Lampson: 'It's my feeling that my constituents do not support restraining funds for our troops, and they don't support, nor do I support, artificial timelines for withdrawing our troops.' Hall, meanwhile, belongs to the Congressional Progressive Caucus and is an ally of MoveOn.org. He says he will not back a 'war without end, and wants U.S. troops home by the end of '07.

Both these guys are in districts where the Republicans have the advantage in registered voters. I hope they both win. Like I said, I hope every Democrat beats every Republican for every office. But you can expect Blue America to be raising money for John Hall and other like-minded Democrats who stand for something that is different from what Republicans stand for.


UPDATE: ACTION ITEM TO REMEMBER FOR NOVEMBER 2008

If you're one of the 90% of Americans who think the 9/11 Commission's suggestions should be made into law in order to make America safer, you'll want to remember some names next time we go to the ballot box. First and foremost is the one coward who played hooky on this: Mr. Double Talk Express John McCain. As I said earlier all Democrats voted "yes." The Republicans who voted against the bill who have to face voters next year are

• Alexander (R-TN)
• Chambliss (R-GA)
• Cochran (R-MS)
• Cornyn (R-TX)
• Craig (R-ID)
• Domenici (R-NM)
• Enzi (R-WY)
• Graham (R-SC)
• Hagel (R-NE)
• Inhofe (R-OK)
• McConnell (R-KY)
• Roberts (R-KS)
• Sessions (R-AL)
• Sununu (R-NH)
• Warner (R-VA)

Coleman (R-MN), Collins (R-ME), Dole (R-NC), and Smith (R-OR) were too scared of their constituents to vote the GOP line on this one.