Media Matters has got an excellent recap ("NBC's Today, New York Times repeated GOP claim that arrests benefit Republicans in elections, when polling shows Democrats have erased GOP advantage on the issue") of the failed attempt to portray the British terrorist arrests as a boon to the American right.

The administration's constant replay of the terror card is actually starting to hurt them now, since every "terrorist" who turns up in the news is a reminder that contrary to Bush's fool rhetoric, the Republicans have not kept anybody 'safe'.

I say again, embrace the term Defeatocrats, because we are indeed a gigantic defeating machine, and we are coming to git 'em.

This got me to thinking that those of us who have been against the war from the beginning had better watch what we wish for, because there is only one reason why Rumsfeld would want to pull our exhausted and depleted army out of Iraq, and that is to send it to Iran.

If the Iraq war had succeeded in the slightest degree, if there were even a somewhat-credible government in Baghdad, if over two thousand US soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens had not been lost, one gathers, Rumsfeld and Cheney and their gang would have been able to start their next game of Toy Soldiers a lot earlier.

And I said, "Because now it is a better world." And this is absolutely literally true.

And we have you to thank, citizens of the great state of Connecticut! My countrymen: thank you! Along with all my fellow progressives in California, I salute you! And my cats salute you!

Anyway, just have a look at this State of the Union address to see how far into the gutter we have all been shoved by the Bush administration and their friends. It's pretty shocking. I don't think anybody could read this and say that it doesn't matter what party is in power. It matters. Vote Democratic.

Democrats are a deliverer of services. They pave the roads, they make sure that your social security checks arrive on time. Not so Republicans.

Who said this?? No, not Howard Dean--Richard Viguerie, famed conservative guru, in today's interview with Raw Story.

They say it themselves!! And ANYONE votes for them?!

God, my brain hurts.

Viguerie followed this remark with the following list of election-winning conservative 'values' and 'issues': "Hillary care, the competence of Bill Clinton, a social agenda, gay rights, a tax increase where no Republican voted for it"--in short, NOTHING that would improve the life of an average American. Hatemongering and demagoguery. That's their whole answer.

June :    3,149
May  :    2,669
April :    1,129

Average Iraqis are now in fear of their lives. Kidnapping is rampant; just three days ago the head of the Iraqi Olympic committee (!) and thirty employees were abducted and driven off. (How can you even kidnap thirty people all at once?) There are dead bodies in the streets. Women can scarcely leave their houses.  

In short, conditions have deteriorated so rapidly and so dramatically in Iraq that only an even more catastrophic event could possibly divert people from learning and talking about Iraq, and only Iraq. So ...

"World War Three," anyone? Every administration shill from Bill O'Reilly to William Kristol has spoken this phrase in public over the last few days.

Is it just me, or does anybody else think that this whole thing was, in part, deliberately precipitated as an election-year ruse designed to lift sagging polling numbers?

Reasonable people who want an unbiased view, please follow me down for some suggestions on getting more information on Middle East history.

This is just what many of us would are longing for the Democrats to do. Not just resist, but rise up and crush our oppressors.

Just to clarify: Jennifer Brunner (D-Columbus), a former judge, will be running against Republican county clerk Greg Hartmann (R-Cincinnati). There are two other candidates, the Green Party’s Tim Kettler and independent John A. Eastman. (Info from The American Street.) Any other good ideas for practical action in this area? I am all ears.

Letterman:  If your father was not the vice president, and you were a gay woman in a gay relationship in the United States in 2004, 2000, would you have voted for this ticket?

Cheney:  Yes, I would have [...] I care very deeply about issues like the Federal Marriage Amendment, I do think it's fundamentally wrong, as I have said repeatedly and as I write about, but in 2004 I didn't have the luxury of being a single-issue voter on the issue of same-sex marriage and quite frankly, I don't think anybody did. That was such an important election and the issues that we were facing--we are a country at war, there are terrorists who will stop at nothing to hurt this country, to injure her people, to attack her interests. And quite frankly, in 2004, you know, I had to support the candidate that I thought was going to do the best job of protecting this country, and no offense to John Kerry, but it wasn't him.

Colbert's exposure of Bush's imperial nudity has utterly freaked out the more cowardly members of the press. As Michael Scherer wrote in Salon,

They had put on their tuxes to rub shoulders with the president. They were looking forward to spotting Valerie Plame and "American Idol's" Ace Young at the Bloomberg party. They invited Colbert to speak for levity, not because they wanted to be criticized. As a tribe, we journalists are all, at heart, creatures of this silly conversation. We trade in talking points and consultant-speak. We too often depend on empty language for our daily bread, and -- worse -- we sometimes mistake it for reality. Colbert was attacking us as well.

"Boring Al Gore has made a movie," the piece begins. Oh, well, yawn! God forbid that Al Gore, the man who won the 2000 US presidential election, should fail to entertain Richard Cohen ...

Given the huge leads Dems garner in opinion polls and that Dem fundraising is keeping pace, if not exceeding, GOP efforts, it's time for HUGE gains in November, isn't it? Isn't it?

YES. Yes, it is. But kos then goes on to say, not Yes, but:

Maybe. It's an indictment of Democratic ineffectiveness that we can't take these huge GOP liabilities and turn them into sure-thing pickups in the fall.

Who says we can't?

If the polls are so great, what "ineffectiveness" are you talking about?  Obviously the Democratic message is appealing to voters now.  So will you bloody well stop saying "ineffectiveness" and "weakness" every time you say "Democrat"??? Can we please leave that idiotic task to the Republicans? If you think the Democrats are such losers, how come you are one?  Sometimes I think you guys admire Karl Rove even more than you do Howard Dean.

The first step is to start saying "victory" every time you say "Democrat".  Say "competence" every time you say "Democrat."  Say "conscience", "sanity", "strength" and "unity" every time you say "Democrat".

Isn't there some way for us to join with like-minded people in these and other countries? Isn't this the best, most important benefit the Internet could confer on the world?

I hope Islamic and other progressives outside the US will come to dKos--it's a start.

Since 1976, the EPA has had a government-appointed advisory panel of scientists, called the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.  For the first time since its founding, the EPA is totally ignoring the recommendations of this committee in formulating clean air standards--thereby saving US industry about $100 billion.  Details plus contacts and suggestions for action below the fold.

Bushco has failed us, that is clear, but they will be ready with a thousand promises of future improvement, and a thousand excuses about needing more time to undo all the damage done to our nation by White House blow jobs of long ago.

Let's find as many ways as we can to say they had their shot, and now they have to go. (Actually 'Game Over' isn't bad, either.)

I would like to nominate georgia10 to write this petition because, in my view, she is the best writer on this site. (If it were up to me, I would demand that Gore's speech be tattooed in its entirety upon the torso of George W. Bush, in mirror writing, so that he could absorb its powerful message in the mirror every day. Which is why I nominate georgia10, whose restraint, scholarship and eloquence would obviously serve the purpose so much better than I ever could.)