The Democrats have been provided with a huge opening on the tax cut issue by Republicans.  The big question is:  Will they seize their potential advantage?

A major element driving the issue of creating a third party revolves around the pathetic example the Democrats have provided in recent years.  

The course Obama charted during the 2008 "Yes we can!" campaign on the issues of honesty and prosecuting violations of the law and the U.S. Constitution has been severely compromised.  Instead of prosecuting culprits from the previous administration Obama and subordinates have copied them on the pretext of fighting terrorism, the supreme catchall used by Bushies.

This campaign is shaping up as a repetition of previous ones where Democrats failed to take advantage of opportunities to score big against Republicans.  The ammunition is clearly available with the current debate over tax cuts.

This may help to better understand the Washington establishment and its courtesan punditry who serve to reinforce their ceaseless narrative of exceptionalism. This is why they've disingenuously covered up the infantilism of George W. Bush for so long: Little Dubya is the id of the ruling class made manifest -- he's their troubled child, who, by his destructive actions, cracks the deceptively normal veneer of a miserable family and reveals the rot within. At a certain level, it's damn entertaining: his instability so shakes the foundation of the house that it causes the skeletons in its closets to dance.

Eight faces that I'm thoroughly sick of.

Ten faces that make me vomit, projectile style.

Now, the man on the stand he wants my vote,

He's a-runnin' for office on the ballot note.

He's out there preachin' in front of the steeple,

Tellin' me he loves all kinds-a people.

He's eatin' bagels

He's eatin' pizza

He's eatin' chitlins

He's eatin' bullshit!

Bob Dylan "I Shall Be Free"

I knew this would happen when they started campaigning for the 2008 election five minutes after the 2006 mid terms. I felt it coming, like the feeling I get when I eat a giant sausage sandwich with peppers and onions at midnight, I know that indigestion is in my immediate future.

I'm sick of politics, thoroughly, fed up, to the gills.... Urp!

I know, I know, being sick of politics is like being tired of living, OK so what what what do you do about it? Shut up? Quit bitching? Take up residence in the nearest hermitage? Find a cuckoo's nest and commit to it?

Appearing at The Blogging Curmudgeon, My Left Wing, and the Independent Bloggers' Alliance.

I was reminded today of a term I haven't thought about in a while, which is funny, because I coined the phrase: "political wushu." I introduced this concept on my blog here, and on My Left Wing here. Wushu means "Arts of War" and once described a body of serious martial arts disciplines in China. But under Mao it was stripped of any real fighting utility and became a dizzying acrobatic sport, which is, to this day, enjoyed as entertainment. Sadly, this is exactly what has happened to our representative democracy. What was once a brave experiment -- a practical application of principles rendered in the age of enlightenment -- is now an empty spectacle. The Democratic Party has put on something of a show of being an opposition party, but it is all part of a choreographed routine, in which the outcome is never in doubt. Their spears are flimsy tin. Their swords, dull.

Did we really expect Congressional Democrats to fight to the finish for timetables in Iraq? Did we honestly think they would put a stop to the madness of this Administration? No, friends. That's not how it was scripted. This week, the mighty Democrats took a dive.

The young are supposed to not care enough to vote...and even if they do, they are supposed to be more conservative than when I was young. And we are always being told that the Jewish vote is going Republican because of Israel, under the insane assumption that killing Muslims helps Israel.

These are myths. They are myths put out by a conservative media and they were proven wrong in this election. This year not only did the youth vote and Jewish vote go overwhelmingly Democratic, but Democrats can now welcome 16 new Native American politicians into its ranks. The Democrats, with all their faults, remain the party of diversity. UPDATED: Asian-Americans as well are bucking the myth!

Does anyone believe that the denizens of K Street have, as of late, begun enriching the coffers of the Democratic Party because the lobbyist class now harbors a secret desire to create a system where a greater diversity of views can be promulgated? Yes, and Jack the Ripper stalked the streets of East London because he wanted to draw attention to the wretched plight of underclass women in class-stratified Victorian England.

Midterm Elections 2006: It's Always Darkest, Right Before ... It Goes Completely Black
by Phil Rockstroh

If voting could change the system, it would be illegal.
--Theodore Adorno

"I can't go on. I'll go on."
--Samuel Beckett

One's actions grow out of one's beliefs. Beliefs grow out of the ecosystem of our collective lives known as culture. In this way, cultures are organic: they germinate, sprout, grow, bloom, bear fruit, then fade in accordance with the climes and terrain of the times.

Does anyone believe that the denizens of K Street have, as of late, begun enriching the coffers of the Democratic Party because the lobbyist class now harbors a secret desire to create a system where a greater diversity of views can be promulgated? Yes, and Jack the Ripper stalked the streets of East London because he wanted to draw attention to the wretched plight of underclass women in class-stratified Victorian England.

Democrats are not pefect...and no Democrat would ever say they were. But Democrats are the political force that, more than any other, has moved this nation forward since the 1930's. Economic fairness, education, civil rights, the dignity of the working many, populism, progressivism, these have all been DEMOCRATIC values since the 1930's. And largely remain Democratic values despite intraparty infighting, political ups and downs, and despite all the attempts of Greens and Republicans to paint our party differently.

Where Democrats too often fail is not, as the Greens and Republicans would have it, in lacking ideas. The Democratic Party has been, for 70 years now, the primary source of new ideas for American politics even while Republicans simply try to restore pre-1930's ideas over and over again no matter how often they fail. Where Democrats too often fail is in having a lack of good leadership from within. But when that leadership emerges, great ideas and great policies often result.

Hezbollah and Hammas.  Most Americans know them only as two more terrorist organizations, generally appearing in our news when they are either on the sending end of rockets aimed at Israeli towns, or on the receiving end of Israeli artillery.  

There's also been some gasping in shock that both of these radical organizations have recently been big winners in democratic elections.  The tendency from this side of the Atlantic is to look on the Hammas victory in the Palestinian territories and Hezbollah's sizeable minority presence in the Lebanese government as revolting surprises (i.e. "we give these people democracy, and look what they do with it!").  

But there's more to the victories of both groups than throwing bombs, and there may be lessons applicable far outside the Middle East.

Sen. Barack Obama's recent speech outining his vision of the proper role of religion in political and public life was met, as I wrote at the time, with mixed reviews. But it did not take long for those of us who offered thoughtful critiques to be the subject of, well, less than thoughtful critiques. Now that the dust has settled a bit, I want to respond to some of this, and to restate that the secular baiting emanating from Inside the Beltway is not only unconscionable but politically counterproductive.

But as I said at the outset, there is much in Obama's speech that I think hits the right notes regarding the role of religion in a democratic pluralist society. At the same time, the speech is indelibly marred by propagating one of the central frames of the religious right. (See also Chip Berlet's discussion of the religious right's framing of Christianity vs. secular humanism.) This is a problem that is not going to go away as long as Obama and other leaders continue to frame part of thier argument in this way.

Talk To Action contributor moiv has discovered a rather striking petition from 1996 in which Jim Wallis - along with a large number of prominent leaders of the Christian right - called for legal bans on abortion.

What does Jim Wallis think now ? It's impossible to tell. Writes moiv:

before his elevation as an "evangelical progressive" celebrity, together with a Who's Who of the Religious Right that he now says "gets it wrong" -- in lockstep agreement with Gary Bauer, Charles Colson, James Dobson, Robert George, William Kristol, Beverly LaHaye, Richard Land, Bernard Nathanson, Frank Pavone and Ralph Reed -- Jim Wallis signed a lengthy document that said plenty about abortion, culminating in a call for a constitutional amendment to criminalize abortion entirely.  And to this day, adept as he is at dodging questions about his true position, Wallis has yet to repudiate a word of it.

Dear Mr. Reed,

To quote from Abraham Lincoln, "I have never written to you in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you."  

From the missives that keep getting launched from the DLC site and DLC operatives, I feel that you are laboring under a horrible misapprehension.  The Democratic blogs don't have a problem with moderate Democrats.  In fact, we don't even have a problem with very conservative Democrats.

It's not about positions.  It's never been about positions.

Sir, you're fighting the wrong fight.

Far better minds than mine (including that sharp instrument that lurks between Georgia10's ears) have been casting about for a solution to the perceived wonkishness of the Democratic policies.  There's a feeling that we're a piecemeal party.  We have a detailed position on everything -- usually several -- but we're lacking a definition of the core principles on which the party is built.  

Maybe it's only that I'm too old to make a connection with the current zeitgeist, but I don't see why Democrats need a new message, a new frame, or a new way of talking.  All we need is the courage to embrace the philosophy that propelled the party from its inception.

Bill Goold, Executive Director of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, shared the following insight with me in February of this year.  It highlights perfectly why we need to stay focused on the Democratic brand when voting.

RE: Overview of how Congressional Progressive Caucus Members would be empowered if party control of the U.S. House of Representatives changes as a result of the November 2006 elections

* At least 10 Congressional Progressive Caucus Members would become Committee Chairmen or Chairwomen

* An additional 35 Congressional Progressive Caucus Members would become Subcommittee Chairmen or Chairwomen.

See the list of Committee and Subcommittee chairs on the flipside...

See if any of this strikes you as familiar:

...this is more a reflection of a Democratic party that is rudderless... reflect splits within the party about what it means to be a Democrat -- and what a winning Democratic formula will be ... while Democrats have no shortage of criticism to offer, they have so far not introduced a strategy for governing...

Article after article expresses the opposite view of Republicans.  Though the recent plummet in Bush's popularity has opened some schisms between the administration and the rest of the party, Republicans are seen as being "united," and "on message," and "delivering a clear platform."

You think that's because Democrats are a big tent and Republicans are just a bunch of white guys who all think alike?  Partly right.  But what makes Republicans able to march in lockstep isn't their similarity -- it's because they've learned to exploit their differences.