The key evidence pointing to the deliberateness of the leak is the fact that Libby discussed Plame's CIA role in June, weeks before Wilson wrote his op-ed. This is significant because it undermines Libby & Rove's innocent explanation for why they were discussing Wilson's wife in the first place.

Throughout this affair, the innocent explanation offered by Libby and Rove was that Wilson reported that Cheney sent him to Nigeria, and that Valerie Wilson was relevant for showing that she, and not Cheney, was responsible for sending Wilson to Africa. The problem with this explanation is that, prior to the publication of Wilson's op-ed, there was no assertion that Cheney sent Wilson to Nigeria to rebut! So why were they discussing Mrs. Wilson anyway?

This question leads us to the inculpatory explanation, i.e., that revealing Mrs. Wilson's status with the CIA was done to damage her professionally as payback against Wilson. This explanation establishes guilt, of course, because the outing of Valerie Wilson doesn't hurt the Wilsons unless Rove and Libby are aware of her undercover status.

Case closed? Not yet. Technically, it's possible that Libby and Rove were discussing Valerie to create a whiff of nepotism as an indirect attack on Wilson's credibility. This explanation, like Libby and Rove's initial cover story, is innocent, i.e., it does not require an inference of guilt. However, this explanation is less likely than the inculpatory explanation because: (a) the nepotism charge is of only negligible value in discrediting Wilson, and (b) it's just not the way that Rove plays the game.

We are mired in a war. Gas prices are soaring. Poverty is rising. Wages are stagnant. Workers are striking. The entire airline industry is in danger of bankruptcy. And there is no end in sight. A massive catastrophe has struck a major city, causing untold destruction and social disorder.

And this is just what's on the front page of a daily today.

This presidency is in real danger of being associated in the public mind with disaster and decline--the Bush Malaise.

My point is that at no point in its long history has America ever been anything remotely close to perfect.  Indeed, I sometimes think that there is no injustice that America is incapable of committing.

Even so, I am utterly devoted to this nation, because, despite the darkest moments of American history, that same history shows that the only thing greater than America's capacity for injustice is its capacity for redemption.

Al Franken says that Conservatives are patriotic in the same way that a child idealizes his or her parents.  By contrast, a Liberal is patriotic in the way that an adult loves his or her parents.  In the

first instance, the admiration is blind and unrealistic.  In the second, the admiration coexists with appreciation of our parents' flaws.

To use Al's analogy, a liberal's disillusioned loss of patriotism is comparable to an adolescent's realization that his or her parents can sometimes be hypocrits.  I suggest that the disillusioned liberal, like the adolescent, could benefit from adopting a more mature perspective.

So let me suggest that a liberal arrives at patiotism because of--not in spite of--his or her knowldge of America's history of injustice.  A liberal's patiotism derives from the fact that the parade of injustices I listed above is a parade that marches only in the past.

And why are these injustices behind us?  Because for as long as America has had injustice, it has had a population of citizens who would not permit the injustice to stand.  Some of these are famous, like Eugene Debs, Dr. King, and FDR.  Others are not, like Sydney Hillman and James Meredith.  But all of them, even the one we call the "Great Emancipator," were liberals in their day.

For this reason, it certainly is proper that part of a Liberal's patriotism should well from an appreciation of the nation's great liberal tradition.  America DOES have a noble history, and America's accomplishments don't just satisfy me; they leave me in awe.  America indisputably is a much better place now than it was 100, 50, or even 20 years ago.  Women, minorities and gays have far more rights.  People are more prosperous.  The culture is more humane.  And we have arrived at these points only through the heroic commitment of our predecessors.  

But Liberals also must not fool ourselves into thinking that we also do not have visceral reactions.  We may fancy themselves cosmopolitan , but that doesn't mean that we aren't connected to a place, a culture, and a people.  In my case, everthing about me is American--my speech, my perspectives, my background, my manner, my love of baseball--everything.  Even if the country had a less noble history, even then, it still would be MY country.  Many of us have parents we do not esteem; even so, we are called upon to love them.  

The National Anthem, Stars and Stripes Forever, the Battle Hymn of the Republic, the Flag, the Lincoln Memorial--these are not symbols, songs, and inconography of some other group of people.  These are symbols of MY identity.  And I, for one, do not stand for conservative polical goals.

Which brings me to my last point, which is that liberals are ill-advised to concede the flag to conservatives.  Conservatives are smart enought to commit all of their iniquitous acts under the cover of the flag.  Liberals at least must be smart enough to oppose them under the same symbol.

Between liberals and conservatives is the struggle over what America means.  If you see the flag only as a symbol of  conservative political causes, then you aren't merely disillusioned.

You're giving up.

The doctrine of divine infusion is a vulnerability because it is purely an article of faith.  Divine infusion has no empirical basis.  Indeed, it is not susceptible to empirical measure or confirmation in any form.  

This is a problem for anti-choicers because, at the bottom of their anti-choice hearts, they would like to give life sentences--or even the death penalty--to women and their doctors for having and participating in abortions.  In other words, they would like to mete out the severest of criminal sanctions in response to their fellow citizens' failure to conform to anti-choice religious doctrines.  

This, of course, is unacceptable in a pluralistic society.

Admittedly, it is nothing new to say that the anti-choice movement is motivated entirely by religious sentiments.  This is obvious from the fact that they propose to have America emulate the abortion laws of overtly-religious Muslim regimes (such as Iran, Egypt or Indonesia) or heavily Catholic nations (such as those in Latin-America, Poland, or the Philippines) and not secular nations such as those in Europe, China, Turkey, Russian, Ukraine, Canada, India, Japan, South Africa, and Australia, where abortion is permitted.

What is new is how rhetorically simple it is to expose the fallacy of divine infusion.  Take, for instance, the example of Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions.  Jehovah's Witnesses believe that blood transfusions violate God's law.  If you believe that it would be completely inappropriate for a community of Jehovah's Witnesses to pass a law proscribing blood transfusions, then you are a pro-choicer.  The pro-choice position involves exactly the same argument, only you replace divine infusion for the belief against blood transfusions.  

If all we do is shout, "Keep your hands off women's bodies!" we let the anti-choicers get away scott-free with their fallacious positions.  In light to the vacancy in Justice O'Conner's seat on the Supreme Court, there never has been a more important time to call the anti-choicers to account.  Calling them out on divine infusion is an especially effective way to do so.  

The gloves are off.  Let's stop going easy on them.  Let's start attacking divine infusion directly.

Explanations for why this is so abound.  “It’s because of moral values,” say some, and promptly these Democrats begin issuing sound bites about how budget deficits and Medicaid cuts are “immoral.”  Others say, “It’s because Democrats can’t talk about faith,” and these Democrats begin talking about prayer and reaching out to faith communities.  Still others claim it’s abortion, and Hillary Clinton emphasizes the need to find “common ground.”

What these responses have in common is that they assume, as Howard Dean does, that the Democrats’ failure to connect with middle-class voters is due to style, not substance.  “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” asks author Thomas Frank.  But here’s a lesson Mr. Frank can learn from Kansans: “First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”  

Mr. Frank and other concerned liberals should be looking at the problems, not with Kansas, but with the Democratic Party, and they should be looking at problems relating, not to style, but to the substance of Democratic policies. 

The reason that middle-class voters are not drawn to Democratic politicians is that Democratic politicians do not advocate for policies that have an immediate, positive impact on the lives of middle-class Americans.  While it is true that Democrats offer middle-class tax cuts, it provides them no advantage because Republicans offer across-the-board tax cuts.  Democrats talk of improving failing schools, but so do Republicans in the form of vouchers.  

Democrats talk of increasing the minimum wage, but this is a policy that helps the working poor, not the middle-class.  Democrats promise to save social security, which helps the middle-class more than the wealthy, but even so, it helps the middle-class twenty or thirty years down the road.  So the question arises, what are the Democrats offering to ordinary folks right now?

The answer is not much, and this, I contend--more than the slogans, more than the framing devices, and more than the image tweaking--is why the Democrats have lost and will continue to lose middle-class voters.