In the same way the Republicans all decided to call it the "Democrat" party, no Democrats should use the phrase "War on Terror."  It is no more a war than the War on Drugs or the War on Poverty.

Using the term War leads us to using the tools of War -- planes, tanks, ships, soldiers with M-16's.

Instead we should be talking about "Protecting Americans from Terrorism."  The tools of protection?  Intelligence, police work, guarding (physically, electronically and legally) the entrances to the US: the ports, the roads, the airports.  Working with other like minded nations where our goals coincide.  Preparing for major catastrope, which includes terrorist attack but also weather, geological and other disasters.
 

I am amazed how much support I've seen on so-called "progressive" blogs for censorship of the media based on content. Rights are enshrined in the Constitution because of the power of a majority to shout out a minority. Whatever I may think of Imus' comments (and I don't think much of them), allowing pressure groups to force him off the air is another step down the path that could silence an AAR host or a Keith Olbermann if some group decided not supporting the President in time of war, or calling the VP some of the things I've heard him called is offensive.

If we demand the right to speak, then we must protect the right to speak of those whose opinions we hate the most. Otherwise, when they come for us, there will be nobody left to speak.

Some folks in the blogosphere are celebrating that Obama was able to raise as much as Clinton. What these people ignore is that once again the bar has been set for being a "serious" candidate, and it's not about your positions on the issues, or your plans for leading the country, it's about how much money you can raise, and how fast you can raise it.

It makes no difference if you get the money from 100 people or 100,000, so long as money is the determinant, then contributors, and not voters, will be the most important people to candidates running, and to our "public servants" once elected. This isn't only true, although it is most obvious, at the Presidential level. The first question any reporter asks a potential candidate for any office is "how much money can you raise?" It's the same question party bigwigs ask, whether it's national pundits or town party "elders."

The primary/caucus system is broken.  Fortunately there's still time to fix it.  The former is obvious on its face.  Just look at all the states trying to move "up" in the calendar.  The latter may be less obvious, but there's nothing stopping the Democratic Party from creating a new system to select its candidate for President.

We need to find a way of selecting Presidential candidates which both preserves the opportunity of unknown candidates to be heard and grow, but doesn't place overwhelming power in a small number of unrepresentative states.

"One big primary" would preclude the former, maintaining the current system promotes the latter.

The Democratic Party, instead of compressing the process, should spread the process out more.

How about this for a bill to pass in the first 100 hours:

The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public law 107-243, 116 Stat. 1497-1502) is hereby rescinded. All actions under the law shall be completed within 120 days and no funds shall be expended for activities under the law after that date.

At that point, if Bush wants to continue to try to keep troops in Iraq under his Commander in Chief powers, it's up to him, but he can't lean on Congress and the IWR for justification. The 120 day number is the lower end of the "four to six months" many Democrats talk about for a date to start redeployment.

This will do more to focus the debate in the country than any hearings of talk of oversight that I'm hearing from the Democratic leadership.

In the next few days, President Bush will propose his latest strategy for Iraq, one that counter to public opinion as expressed in repeated polls and the November elections will escalate the war, adding more troops and putting them in the most dangerous places. Since the military officers who are actually there don't support this strategy, he is replacing them. Since the universally respected ambassador to Iraq doesn't support the strategy, he's getting slid over to the United Nations, which anyone who knows the Bush administrations attitude toward the UN knows isn't a promotion except on paper.

How should the Democrats in Congress and we as the progressive/reform wing of the party react to this? With three words: Dead on Arrival.

The words that surround a policy suggestion in the first few days often control the debate. This is the essence of framing. We want to make that debate "is it Dead on Arrival or is it not?" Then we want to move the debate so that it quickly becomes obvious the answer is yes and we can move on to other alternatives in Iraq.

Ben Franklin once said "We've spawned a new race here... Rougher, simpler; more violent, more enterprising; less refined. We're a new nationality. We require a new nation." But Franklin wasn't really telling the truth, not then, and not for most of the history of this country. We were too big for that. There was a Southern culture and a New England culture and a Western Culture and dozens more, restricted by the difficulty of travel and the minimum of communication among regions of the country, even of individual states. This lasted until the invention of Radio.

You may be wondering why only a dozen or so Senators would vote for withdrawal of US troops from Iraq within a year when polls seem to show that is the opinion of a plurality and depending on the poll, even a majority of Americans.

The answer is, you're not reading the same polls they are.