host....

Historians may also look back at the accomplishments of the Democrats over the last two years that stopped or overturned many of the questionable, unethical and unlawful practices of the Bush administration:

* exposing and ending Bush's illegally program to wiretapping American citizens w/o warrant that would otherwise have continued unabated

* exposing Bush's policy of torture and denial of basic rights to foreign detainees that resulted in the USSC restoring some (not all) basic Constitutional rights

* enacting FOIA reform legislation to overturn Bush's executive order that denied most FOIA requests

* exposing Bush administration violations of the Hatch Act to politicize government agencies beyond what is permissible under the law (several high level persons fired)

* exposing Bush's dismantling of the legislative intent of the DoJ Civil Rights Division and attempts to politicize voter rights investigations counter to agency policy (forcing several DoJ resignations)

* exposing Bush administration unlawful political interference with government scientific findings and recommendations (forcing several firings/resignations at EPA, DOI)

* proposed new FBI procedures and oversight regarding use of national security letters as a result of WH ignoring intent of Congress by issuing signing statement that permitting unlawful practices

* proposed legislation to provide greater independent contracting oversight and control as a result of abuses in Iraq reconstruction (and other sole source) contracts given to "friends of Bush'Cheney"

* proposed revisions to the Presidential Records Act as a result of WH destruction of e-mails

The issue listed above deal with open/transparent government and the restoration of rights. I didnt include other legislative accomplishments....restoration or expansion of many domestic programs that Bush and the Republican Congress previously blocked or cut significantly (minimum wage, student loan reform, headstart, CDBG, COPS,alternative energy r&d....).

IMO, this is not a "right wing" agenda or a "sell out"

By any measure, the Democrats accomplished more in their first two years than the Gingrich "Contract with America" revolution..and they did so by enacting top priority Democratic domestic programs and programs to stop the abuses of Bush and make the government more open and transparent.

Their greatest failure was to overpromise that they could stop the war in Iraq and bring the troops home when they didnt have the votes in Congress...when many Republicans went back on their word to support a new policy if/when the political/economic benchmarks for Iraq were not met (they, and Bush, just lowered the benchmarks instead).

I know you prefer digging in your heals and demanding more dramatic solutions/responses to other problems/issues resulting from Bush, but that generally do not have public support (eg retroactive immunity for telecomms...most people dont care as long as spying on citizens w/o a warrant stops).

IMO, what the Democrats have put in place is a new foundation....probably more "centrist" or "left-centrist" than you might like, but one on which they can govern with the support of a majority of the American people...because that is where most of America is today...they are not as "progressive" as you.

IF, they win the WH and increase their majority in Congress, you are likely to see an agenda that includes:

* a new Iraq strategy that focuses on redeployment in a manner that is in the US interest and provides Iraq with the economic/political support it needs during the transition.

* USSC appointments that protect women's rights and the rights of consumers over corporations

* the first steps to universal health care by covering all children

* a refocus on middle class tax relief and not the top 2% of wage earners

* an enhanced effort to focus on energy alternatives rather than drilling our way forward

* an enhanced role for government regulation overturning some of the worst deregulation of the 80s that resulted in the most abusive corporate excesses and practices

* a refocus on environmental enforcement

* a refocus on voter rights enforcement and legislation to ban voter caging

* and more

But not if the most extreme forces on the far left of the party drive away the others.

It may not be the Democratic party of the 1920s or 1960s that you would like to see, but that just aint gonna happen anymore ..unless you want it to be a permanent minority party.

At least, that is my take on it and I am more than comfortable with the party as it moves forward in this direction.

I still support your passion to want more and the failures you see in the system (Unlike some here, I read your posts and agree with many, but not all)...but again, I will take what we can achieve rather than go for broke, lose the majority, and achieve nothing as a minority party.

Host,

I heard that Democrats are supporting the new Iraq war spending bill. They are authorizing another $165 in part on a war in Iraq that you think is illegal, a war they call Bush's war, a war they have no ownership of, a war that some were for and against at the same time.

I guess they were forced into "compromise" again. They needed to pass unemployment compensation extensions, some added GI benefits and flood disaster relief. We can say one thing about the Democrats - they always have good reasons for supporting the war you think is illegal.

dc_dux, the democratic house leadership capitulated, the republicans are laughing at them.....

Now, the "vote" on the house bill is rushed, the vote will take place 24 hours after the bill was printed....just the way the patriot act was rammed down the throats of congressmen in 2001....rushed, hushed, no time for debate, only one hour is scheduled before the vote takes place later this afternoon, no time for hearings or public feedack. At least the patriot act included a 5 year sunset provision.

I don't want to be right..... ratbastid has stayed away when I've criticized Obama as an approved candidate of the powerful people who engage in the very practices and agendas Obama is supposedly vowing to reform if he is elected. Obama and the house and senate majority leadership are complicit with and further empowering the criminal president whose policies and abuses they've claimed to oppose.

All of them are, by their actions, my political opponents....

With Nomination Clinched, Obama Now Free To Be Horrifying Scumbag
http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/002364.html

Link to 15 pages of Obama supporters defending his campaign's strategy of limiting access of the press covering him on the campaign trail:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/0..._n_108094.html

I would have much preferred that he had made himself available to the representatives of the press who cover him, on thursday afternoon or evening, to show some leadership by disclosing his vehement objection to the imminent attack on our constitutional rights, negotiated by Hoyer and approved by Pelosi, that will take place via a house vote on FISA "reform" on friday. Why would Obama do anything but caefully control his image and access of the press, by strictly limiting it, with a "fan base" like those commenting on the pages accessed at the above link?

How many times have I hammered Bush for giving a secret speech to a CNP audience in San Antonio during his 1999 presidential campaign?
Note that Hoyer and Pelosi have rushed this through for a vote so quickly that opponents won't have time to spend the grassroots fundraising proceeds on targeted ads intended to discourage key blue dog democrats from voting for it's passage.

Nancy Pelosi speaks positively, thursday, of the bill and of Hoyer's "efforts":
House republicans and the Bush admin. used the same tactic....a vote before the ink was even dry on the pages of the printed bill, just after 9/11:

host...the only thing I can say is that I look at the totality of the Democratic "successes" over the last two years (as I painstakingly highlighted above) as opposed to the far smaller number of "failures"....

....that could very well be moved to the "successes" column if they win the WH and a larger majority in Congress.

On the issue of how bills are crafted/combined....someone once said (I think it was Otto von Bismarck):

"Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made".

And no, I am not comparing the Democrats to the German "Iron Chancellor".

I am sure someone said this:

"Why eat sausage when you can eat steak?"