The Washington Post excerpts a book about what we already knew: that ties to GOP trumped know how in Iraq. This is one of the most damning examples in a long list - damning because this war is the center piece of both foreign and domestic policy in Bush's two terms. Never before has a war of aggression dominated American politics for as long as the Iraq War.

O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade .

This isn't really an expose, in fact, it has been such common knowledge that the executive has packed key positions with political hacks that it even had a name "Proconsul Bremer" referring to Paul Bremer, and the incredibly partisan manner in which people were chosen under his tenure.

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I can hardly wait to dig into Frank Rich's new book "The Greatest Story Ever Sold." Great title too.

I am involved with two liberal arts colleges founded in the revolutionary era. One of these is Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and founded in 1783 where I'm on the Board of the Clarke Center.

The other is Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland founded in 1782. At Washington College, I am on the Advisory Board of the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

If you are a history junkie and want to read a new blog launched by one of Washington College's recent graduates, John Bohrer, check out Revolutionary College Blog.

I try to get to both colleges as often as possible, and this morning I find myself blogging at "Play it Again Sam's," the central town funky coffee shop where the locals hang out and tell me who they think REALLY should have won in the recent local primaries -- but that's not the topic today.

What is in part the topic is a fascinating book of which I am only in the first fifty pages -- and which I recommend to you. Pick up and read Stacy Schiff's A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France and the Birth of America.

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hades of Herman Wouk!  George Bush strolled into the Rose Garden today and channeled the behavior of Captain Philip Francis Queeg as described in the Caine Mutiny.  He avoided grasping for small steel balls in his coat pocket and rolling them menacingly in his hand (no clack, clack to compliment the clicks of cameras) but he did have the shrill, hysterical tirade down pat.   For those not familiar with the Queeg character, consider the following traits described courtesy of Wikipedia:

Queeg is assigned as captain of the U.S.S. Caine

Sort of like being named President by the Supreme Court--a command decision.

He is initially welcomed by the crew as a tough, no-nonsense veteran, who will shape up the ship after his slovenly predecessor's departure.

Oval Office oral sex does not qualify as "slovenly", but it certainly was tawdry.  Despite the uproar surrounding his appointment, most of the country welcomed Governor Bush--the tough minded, compassionate conservative--as a tonic to restore honor to the Presidency.

After a honeymoon period, it becomes apparent that Queeg is prone to eccentric behavior. Queeg displays a micro-managing command style and (sometimes unprovoked) angry outbursts.

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Playing in Dallas Sunday night isn't going to be fun for the Skinnies. The team is cursed by using a derogatory label for Native Americans as a nickname, but having the owner hire Tom Cruise is a double dose of ill luck. On a more rational level, Coach Gibbs, a true leader of men, made a terrible mistake when he brought in Brunell more than two years ago. By contrast, McNabb now of the Ravens shows the sort of aged, fine wine talent that can be culled by astute teams. But still worse were the choices of this past summer -- high priced defenders who don't defend, no depth at the corners, an exaggerated view of the running back capability, and an even more exaggerated opinion about the quality of the lines, where the game is won or lost.
The Coach needs to pick a successor. But still, it's Dallas week and for the long-time fans, like me, that's a tale, like Beowulf, unto itself. I recall when Petitbon's team, which was terrible, trampled the Boys in the old RFK: made the dreadful season worthwhile. Then there were the Staubach years before that -- what nightmares. Or Clint Longley. Ah the tragedies. But last year Brunell was brilliant in Dallas. Let lightning strike twice in the same place.

The modern age was concerned with machines, and its artistic conflicts centered in which aspects of the scientificized and mechanized age to embrace. Our machines are different, chiefly in that they seem to have no moving parts. Artistic conflicts in the pop age are over which aspects of formula and genre to embrace, which aspects of a world where thre is no root of ultimate interpretation, no final court of intellectual, artistic or political "truth". Elites in this age struggle with the reality that ordinary people are more educated, but no less alienated than before. It is harder to lead, because people trust leaders less, but have no greater an understanding of what issues leaders - artistic and otherwise - grapple with.

There has been a recent flap in the world of classical music which helps illuminated the problems that are also faced in the political world. The composer's name is Jay Greenberg, and he's produced a work of astoundign shallowness and mediocrity - and the soulless machine has turned it into a cause célibataire.

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I want to commend Senators McCain, Graham and Warner, and also General Colin Powell, for their unequivocal stand against the use of torture on enemy detainees. They are right on this issue. And the President is wrong.

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In case you missed it, like I did, here's the
TPM Link to this underpublicized story from a year ago.

H/T to Joseph at Blageuer

Little noticed, but the progressive movement had massive victories in multiple states this last week-- victories that mean that millions of children will have better schools and families will have better services and health care.  The rightwing had been hoping to export Colorado's "Taxpayer Bill of Rights" (also known as TABOR), a severe tax cutting measure that crippled that state for most of the last decade. 

Ballot petitions had been filed in multiple states for TABOR-like initiatives, but this last week in Michigan, Nevada and Montana, state courts and agencies tossed the measures off the ballot-- largely due to variations of fraud committed by rightwing activists.  This followed Oklahoma and Missouri tossing similar measures off the ballot earlier in this year.

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State Senator Steve Cohen won the Democratic primary for Congress from Tennessee's 9th district (now vacant as Harold Ford, Jr. runs for Senate). As the New Republic points out in a lively article, Cohen - -who is white and Jewish -- not only wants to represent this majority-minority district, but also wants to join the Congressional Black Caucus once elected.

Considering that Cohen won the Democratic primary fair and square and is the party's nominee in this overwhelming Democratic district, he should be making history come January when the new Congress is sworn in. Yet, as TNR points out, Jake Ford -- Harold Jr.'s younger brother who dropped out of St. Alban's and has worked for his father's lobby shop -- is making a bid as an independent (after his cousin, Joe Ford, Jr., lost to Cohen in the primary).

Dare I say it, but is Jake Ford "pulling a Lieberman"? And if so, where is the netroots outrage?

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The Republicans have entered the election endgame. They expect slightly reduced, and temporary, inflationary pressures to convert a few people - but primarily they are in GOTV (Get Out The Voted) and KITV (Keep In The Vote) mode. They want their voters to be motivated, and they want to demotivate marginal voters on the other side, without demotivating their own. This means that they are going to talk about three things: Democrats are terrorists, Democrats hate the economy and individual Democrats are soft on terrorism and taxes. It is a simple plan.

The Democratic Party is still trying to figure out who its voters are, and flails about with slogans and props. Instead, the Democrats should enter the endgame and talk about a simple set of points: Iraq is idiocy, wages are terrible, and the corrupt Republicans are responsible for both. They too should be engaged in KITV - that is, attacking Republicans for not being Republican enough.

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Sid Blumenthal's new book provides a great benchmark for evaluating what I believe is a new phase in the Bush Presidency. Sid's collection of essays certainly documents the devious, nasty tactics Bush and his boys have employed during their tenure in the White House to date. However, several events this week suggest the act is wearing thin and may be over. Let's start with the hunt/non hunt for Bin Laden. According to Fred Barnes, Fox News Commentator, Bush has downgraded finding Bin Laden:

HOST: Alright Fred, you and a few other journalists were in the Oval Office with the President, right? And he says catching Osama bin Laden is not job number one?

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Sid Blumenthal's new book provides a great benchmark for evaluating what I believe is a new phase in the Bush Presidency. Sid's collection of essays certainly documents the devious, nasty tactics Bush and his boys have employed during their tenure in the White House to date. However, several events this week suggest the act is wearing thin and may be over. Let's start with the hunt/non hunt for Bin Laden. According to Fred Barnes, Fox News Commentator, Bush has downgraded finding Bin Laden:

HOST: Alright Fred, you and a few other journalists were in the Oval Office with the President, right? And he says catching Osama bin Laden is not job number one?

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Andrew Bacevich makes the interesting suggestion that Bush is more cynical than radical. But like Sid, I don’t see the two as mutually exclusive. We should remember that all politics, and all governance, demands some compromise of principles, which can always invite charges of cynicism from those seeking to renounce a failed figurehead who has claimed to represent their ideology. No modern president has governed without some degree opportunism, cynicism, and even selling out (though some do it more than others).

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There is, right now, a desperate search for options on dealing with the Iranian nuclear crisis. All of the Security Council permanent members admit that they do not wish to see Iran become an atomic state, nor do they wish to see the situation spiral out of control. However, the willingness to do something about the problem varies widely, even within NATO allies.

Let us first admit that Iran isn't going to make the list of the West's favorite regime any time soon. They are repressive at home, they export terrorism, have geopolitical and cultural ambitions which include a sphere of influence that extends from Beirut to the Kashmir. Iran's vision of itself is as the natural regional dominant power, and as the center of Shia Islam, intellectually and economically, as well as politically. Not to put too fine a point on it, diplomacy is most important when dealing with regimes with conflicting goals and aspirations, and marginal means of pursuing them. It is preventing the hostile state from becoming inimical that the test of diplomacy lies.

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Under the duress of whirling sectarian violence in Iraq, President Bush is more determined than ever to “stay the course.” Faced with mid-term elections whose outcome will either maintain one-party rule or provide a check on his power, he is entrenching his policies against any changes. In his comment on my book, “How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime,” David Greenberg raises the question of Bush’s responsibility for his administration’s radicalism. Todd Gitlin’s comment suggests that there’s a symbiotic relationship between Bush and the Republican base. “Bush is the voice of Bush’s base,” Gitlin writes. The Symbionese Liberation Army?

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Don’t tell Senator Frist that (once again) a moderate Republican — not “Democratic obstructionism”— is responsible for Bolton’s apparent defeat. Over on his political action committee’s shadow Bolton Watch blog, the good doctor writes:

This month Senate Republicans will do everything they can to break Democrat obstruction and give John Bolton the fair up-or-down vote that he was denied last year. But we need your help to turn up the heat on the Democrats by flooding their offices with your calls in support of Ambassador Bolton and the President's agenda for reforming the waste and incompetence of the United Nations.

There is something terribly ironic about this. For instead of including Lincoln Chafee on the list of Senators whom Bolton supporters should contact, Frist lists only the telephone numbers of Democratic Senate offices. Partisanship, it would seem, trumps his goal of getting the Bolton nomination to the Senate floor for an up or down vote.

Everyday, I thank my lucky stars that Frist is terrible at his job.

If I'd driven through St. Bernard Parish before Katrina I'd probably have yawned because it was so typically average American. But to see it now leaves one angered and mystified that this is happening in America.

I think St. Bernard Parish unfortunately is often overlooked in the Post Katrina narrative. Most are aware of the Lower 9th Ward yet many other areas in and around New Orleans were devastated. Lives, homes, businesses, neighborhoods and whole communities were lost directly affecting people of all races and incomes. All their stories of survival and the struggle to reclaim their lives deserve telling.

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Remember Dubai Ports World? Back in February, the UAE company was poised to take over several U.S. ports. Democrats seized the opportunity to attack President Bush for turning over port security to an Arab country, and forced DP World to promise that it would sell its operations to a U.S. entity. Now comes an announcement that DP World has become the “first global marine terminal operator in the world to gain international certification for its security management system.” If we’re serious about security, scoring political points isn’t worth this price.

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The Washington Post has run an article this morning stating that the administration's effort to get John Bolton "confirmed" is now essentially dead -- though Condoleezza Rice seems ready to deploy some theatrics to try and get Senator Lincoln Chafee to change his mind.

My question is why didn't she do that after the late July hearing in which Chafee clearly outlined his serioius problems with the administration's Middle East foreign policy. Playing catch-up won't get Bolton confirmed.

Peter Baker and Dafna Linzer write:

President Bush's nomination of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations appears increasingly endangered in the Senate, prompting the administration to explore other ways to keep him in the job after his temporary appointment expires in January, officials said yesterday.

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The Washington Post has run an article this morning stating that the administration's effort to get John Bolton "confirmed" is now essentially dead -- though Condoleezza Rice seems ready to deploy some theatrics to try and get Senator Lincoln Chafee to change his mind.

My question is why didn't she do that after the late July hearing in which Chafee clearly outlined his serioius problems with the administration's Middle East foreign policy. Playing catch-up won't get Bolton confirmed.

Peter Baker and Dafna Linzer write:

President Bush's nomination of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations appears increasingly endangered in the Senate, prompting the administration to explore other ways to keep him in the job after his temporary appointment expires in January, officials said yesterday.

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Bill Frist has tasked Budget Committee Chair Judd Gregg, Finance Committee Chair Charles Grassley, Republican Policy Committee Chairman Jon Kyl, and Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) with developing a viable legislative strategy for the trifecta bill and asked them to report their recommendations on Friday.

Is he tasking them with failure?

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Jason is right to note the discussion at American Prospect about the condition of the middle class. But don't miss the discussion at the Democratic Strategist either. Some very interesting posts at the intersections of politics and the economy.

 I don't think of myself as politically savvy, but I couldn't resist wading into this debate.  My second post goes up Thursday morning. 

The student loan default rate has jumped up in the last year, according to an Education Department announcement today. The rate increased from 4.6 percent to 5.1 percent.

It's true that -- as Education emphasizes in its press release -- 5.1 percent is a low number, at least by historical standards. It is the second-lowest rate in the last 20 years.

At the same time, the jump is the largest increase since 1990. It is a worrying sign that greater troubles for students could be ahead.

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The American Prospect is hosting a terrific online discussion on the following question: just how is the middle class faring in the modern American economy, and how should progressives tailor their message and program accordingly? It's definitely worth following.

After the GOP-controlled Congress had scheduled so few full legislative "workdays" in the coming session (11 if my memory serves), I was worried that the all-important House/Senate oil-royalty bill negotiations would fall victim to the thin schedule, which precedes the contentious political season. During his Katrina tour two weeks ago, the President paid lip service to Louisiana's need for royalties to rebuild the wetlands before quickly turning to Iraq war speeches and demands for Congress to pass clarifying legislation for the CIA's secret prisons... etc.

According to today's article in the Times Picayune, the outlook for the royalty bill seems to be grim:

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Reading Sid’s invaluable, rightly unnerving columns, I’ve also been musing about David Greenberg’s question: Bush’s responsibility. It’s immense, and Sid properly nails many instances where Bush’s self-intoxicated admixture of bulldozer willfulness, pseudo-godliness, and unacknowledged ignorance have made the proverbial difference. No question but that Bush himself, Bush the pretender, is indispensable to the victory of the radical pseudo-conservativism of his government. Cheney may be the brains in this brainlessness, but Bush and Cheney have fashioned a division of malevolent labor that works for both of them, and Bush is, I don’t doubt, ultimately the decider-in-chief.

That much is straightforward, I think. But it also must be said that Bush incarnates certain potentials long embedded in movement conservatism, potentials that, in combination, add up to a whole drastically worse than the sum of the parts: ignorance of the larger world; deafness toward reason; vindictiveness toward dissidents; cronyism; systematic deception; fiscal recklessness; centralization of power and its abuses. Reagan began the process of conservative consolidation, but Bush has the energy, focus, and vindictiveness that Reagan lacked. He also, not least, had September 11.

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Do you think that if you don’t have any past due bills that you won’t have to deal with abusive debt collectors? Think again. Walter Robinson and Beth Healy of the Boston Globe are back this morning, following up on their terrific four-part series on debt collection. The Globe has more stories about how debtor collectors harass people, but this story should tip over everyone's cereal bowls. It is about how collectors pound--and keep pounding--on the wrong people. Are you next?

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A quick word on some potentially positive developments coming out of the Middle East.

1) Palestinian national unity government deal on verge of being clinched, which could pave the way for re-engaging with the Palestinian Authority and reviving a political tract of Israeli-Palestinian negotiation. A unity government may be the only way to prevent anarchy and chaos in the PA and build stability, workable governance and a ceasefire. The test now will be how the key players respond to this initiative of President Abbas. If this opportunity is not seized, and this is dismissed as a “terrorist government,” “non-partner”, non-event, then it’s (further) downhill from here. British PM Blair has already welcomed the development and called for an end to the international boycott of the PA. The Americans and Israelis may well now indulge in a game of who blinks first – a better bet would be to stare the stark reality in the face and choose the least-worst option: Namely, deal with the Palestinians, their democratic decision and the best option to exit this six year old nightmare of violence transplanting dialogue.

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To read Sid Blumenthal’s columns over the last few years is a mixed experience. There is, of course, the pleasure of reading a gifted stylist and shrewd analyst of American politics. I don’t mean to flatter Sid (whom I’ve known since I interned at The New Republic in 1990) to say that he’s the rare analyst of contemporary affairs who brings to his commentary a deep knowledge of American history and political culture. His columns resonate with the earned authority that comes from real knowledge, not just the stature that comes from having a TV show or an Op-ed page (or a blog) as a platform. I often find myself nodding in agreement with his critiques. More important, I often learn from them.

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Count me as one of the bamboozled. As Sid Blumenthal notes in the intro to his latest work, Bush promised in the 2000 campaign "moderation and compassionate conservatism". Boy, and to think I bought that nonsense. How Bush Rules offers a readable but methodical walk down memory lane. One of the problems we seem to have in this country is a complete lack of memory, especially when it comes to politics and policy.

Dick Cheney's performance on Meet the Press this past Sunday reminded me of the story of the woman who comes home early and finds her husband in bed with the maid. The wife shrieks, "How could you?" and the husband replies, "How could I what?". "Cheat on me", she says. "Cheat on you?" he says, "I'm not cheating". "But you are naked in bed with another woman", his wife insists. The husband responds calmly, "No I am not. I'm not naked and I don't see any woman".

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I'd like to take issue with the characterization of the Bush administration as uniquely radical.

My perspective is that of an antiwar conservative.

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I wasn’t originally going to write the obvious post about the odd relationship between 8/29 and 9/11. The whole thing is just too negative, and I couldn’t compose anything that didn’t seem like a rant. But Keith Olbermann’s stinging rebuke of the President last night unlocked something for me. After 9/11, the nation put its collective will into the hands of the President and asked him to lead. His leadership consisted of stoking the fear to absurd levels of paranoia – in essence, the demand was that the American people turn into a bunch of cowards. And in a massive display of national unity, the people complied.

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Everyone has a September 11th Story. This is mine. It is an exclusive excerpt, from Chapter Six of my book, Chasing Ghosts.

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If the political dynamic surrounding Darfur remains static, the region has about three weeks before African Union forces are replaced by the Sudanese military and its genocidal proxies. Meanwhile, Kofi Annan is struggling to sound the alarm on the sheer urgency of the crisis. Yesterday, he appeared in person before the Security Council for an important briefing on recent developments.

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As an extension to Boyd's excellent post below on gubmint waste, I wanted to link to a fine NOLA blog called Wet Bank Guide, which points to the latest FEMA absurdity. Believe it or not, Louisiana is getting penalized for being fiscally responsible, and wanting to do an audit of costs.

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The Washington Post reported yesterday that the Republican congressional campaign committees plan to spend "more than 90%" of its funds on negative attacks on Democratic challengers based on local issues and scandals.

I’ve seen two reactions to this. First, the suggestion that it contradicts Republican threats to nationalize the election around security. And, second, that it’s more or less business as usual, because the party in power always wants to treat elections as local fights between individual incumbents and challengers, while the party out of power always wants to use a national tide to give its challengers a boost.

Neither response recognizes quite how unusual this is. And the article doesn’t quite say it either.

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9/11, that is.

So far that is decidedly not the case. As others have pointed out, (especially in the most excellent Stirling Newberry’s “Birthday for the Banana Republicans” post and thread), in addition to the tragedy of lives directly lost and the repercussions from that, there is the rocket boost that 9/11 gave to the neocon agenda.

Still, as hard as it may be to see now, or even imagine, it’s conceivable to me that somewhere down the road we will look back at this period as the beginning of the end of American exceptionalism. It’s possible that we are already involved in forming the collective awareness necessary to become members of a community of nations that truly aligns our national identity and democratic goals with the emergent multi-polar world economy.

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My newly published book, “How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime,” (Princeton University Press), is a first draft of the history of the Bush presidency in and an analysis of its unprecedented radicalism.

The fifth anniversary of 9/11 illustrated in many ways how Bush has exploited the trauma to pursue his radical agendas. The public was supposed to remember the event as the occasion of the president’s heroism. Not only are we to forget “My Pet Goat” but also Bush’s dismissal of the Aug. 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief, “Bin Laden Determined To Strike In United States.” We are encouraged to recall the iconic pose of Bush on the rubble of the World Trade Center, bullhorn in hand, arm wrapped around a fireman, but not the giddy president in airman’s uniform striding on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln to stand before a sign proclaiming, “Mission Accomplished.”

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For those who have been waiting for a return to Skins commentary, and I know how many you are, after tonight's game I can only assure you that gloom and misery has swallowed whole the entire city of Washington. I refer to the real people, us, who lived here before the current interlopers.
The Skins teach moral lessons. Like when your owner has the wacky Tom Cruise in his box, your team plays like they just showed up from Mars. Like when your coaches outnumber your players, some of the fine points -- like hitting harder and not grabbing face masks on national TV -- tend to get overcomplicated in the discussions. Like when your quarterback still doesn't have time to throw deep cause your overpaid line isn't any good, you got a problem.
Oh sigh it's going to be a long, long season, and my precious few who care to track it on this blog we shall hang together even while the rest scorn us......

There's a hole in the sky, just a few blocks from my work down here in lower Manhattan-- a hole where ruthless ideologues murdered three thousand people and terrorized a nation.  I remember that day five years ago-- where I could see the burning remains of Ground Zero from across the river in my then home in Jersey City. 

And for a few short weeks, there was a unity in the nation, a healing of that hole as people came together to ask why, not just with a vow of revenge on those who committed the murder but also unity on working together to try to heal a world where such hate not only could breed but be applauded by too many people around the world.

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When Jason Zengerle at The New Republic bemoaned the lack of good political protest music last year, I encouraged him to take a listen to "We Got Back the Plague," a powerful shot across the Bush administration's bow.  "Sometimes the signs of heaven are vague/early November we got back the plague," sings Eleanor Friedberger of the Brooklyn-based duo.  And she also raps down hard about Bush's so-called "committed 72-hour task forces."

But it looks like for Chuck Hagel, 72-hours is too long when it comes to a decision as important as who our Ambassador at the United Nations should be. 

No, in this case, it only takes 20 minutes, says Fred Barnes at The Weekly Standard.

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My colleague in the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and CNN's terrorism analyst Peter Bergen is broadcasting live intermittently today on CNN from the Afghanistan/Pakistan border from a U.S. base camp there.

I just received word an hour ago from Peter that the camp is under fire -- most likely from Taliban/al Qaeda forces. He has learned much and has much to say on the current state of play with al Qaeda, bin Laden, the Taliban, and Afghanistan's and Pakistan's political stability.

He will be broadcasting live tonight 10 pm - midnight ET on CNN, live from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Just wanted to give an alert.

Few people took 9/11 harder than I did, for a variety of reasons. However, it is fairly clear that 9/11 is two different days, for many, it is not a tragedy of the modern world, but the national day of their New American Century - the day when all of the old rules collapsed in with the towers of the World Trade Center. I got a good taste of this place last night sitting in the US Airways sh*ttle gate in DCA. While hard right wing propoganda blared forth from the televisions - clips of Bush declaring that this is "World War III" - mice cavorted around the desks and a small brown bird flew around gathering scraps and going back to her nest. Never had it seemed more appropriate to have renamed the place for Ronald Reagan.

It was the very model of a Banana Republic run by Banana Republicans. I don't fly banana republic carriers, and I won't be on a carrier which is simultaneously crassly partisan, and manifestly incompetent - oh and the plane's air conditioner had problems, so we left late. Friends don't let friend fly the US Airways sh*ttle I've been told, and it seems to be true.

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It struck me yesterday while watching VP Cheney on Tim Russert. How come elected officials are allowed to lie?

Think about it. Cheney said he didn't see the Senate report. That is, of course, a lie. In fact, 90% of the time when politicians say that they can't comment because they did not "read the report" or "see that story," they are lying.

Why is it that this is acceptable? And I'm not saying Republicans lie more than Democrats either.
Eric Alterman's recent book on Presidential lying demonstrates that our leaders pretty much lie about everything.

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The White House will try to get Democrats to vote "for terrorists" or in other words for the Constitution, and trusting Republican Senators to block this effort is far too risky for D's. Democrats need to take the offensive. I argued here months ago that Democrats needed to insist on a good law being passed and demand immediate trials. They didn't and of course are now on the defensive.

The White House campaign is nationally only about the war on terror and locally is about going negative in very specific ways, person by person. The goal is to boost their own turn-out and drive down ours. The strategy depends, as the same effort did 2004, entirely on turn-out. Democrats need to stop worrying about being middle-of-the-road so as to be pleasing to independents, and focus on their own allegations, charges, and offensive measures, both nationally and in each local race. Democrats will win by rallying their base, and not by appealing to the "middle," which in fact is not determinative in offyears generally and even more likely to be irrelevant in this year of divisiveness.

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TPM Reader MC's plans ...

Well... I for one will be watching this show tonight. I want to make up my mind for myself. But, I will be doing it with a mini-legal pad on my knee... The network says that there will be limited commercial interruption... whatever that means... But... I want to list the advertisers who are the ones that are ultimately making this possible. I urge all TPM readers to do the same.

Sounds like a good idea to me. I think we may make a collaborative project out of this, in conjunction with readers. Perhaps people could email in, give us the list of advertisers along with the affiliate and city you were watching in?

Thoughts?