When politicians do something enormously pleasing to their supporters, the MSM typically describes the move as "red meat for the base".  

Well, I don't know about you, but, as a red-meat loving Dem, I'm starving.  All I get, day after day, story after story, diary after diary, comment after comment, is an endless string of political and legislative defeats fobbed off as the best we can hope for right now given that we don't have super-majorities in the House, Senate, Knesset, British Parliament, UN general assembly, Pleasantville City Council and of course, the all-important Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

No red meat for me.  In fact, our leadership seems to be going out of its way to feed me nothing but ice-chips, arsenic and weak tea, as if I'm some sort of invalid that they can't decide whether to comfort or euthanize.  

Yet, as they said in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I'm not dead yet.  In fact, in spite of the occasional arsenic toddy, politically I feel pretty strong.  So why do my leaders keep feeding me this bland diet as if I'm a puppy that keeps throwing up on the rug?

... and why are they still in charge?

Here in the nuthouse, we have all been puzzled by the erratic performance of Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).  He's had his moments, like this one, or more recently even this one.  My favorite, of course, is when he sent the wingers into a frenzy by saying what we all know - that the war is lost.  

More often though, Reid has had long stretches where his leadership results in things like the heinous FISA bill, or the new and improved, no-fuss filibuster, or the most recent travesty, the MoveOn ad rebuke.

Where in hell is Harry getting his political advice?

Ever wonder what kind of effect DailyKos has out in the wide-wide-world beyond the great orange choir hall?  Well I do, and yesterday I stumbled across a bit of evidence that stopped me in my tracks.

Yesterday BarbinMD called out the Capitulation Caucus, those Democratic reps who've already given in to the Republicans by signing on to HR3087, aka Abercrombie/Tanner or The Cover My Deep Red Republican Ass With A No-Timetables Pretty Please Get Us Out Of Iraq Mister Twenty Five Percent Act.  

I clicked in expecting to revel in the usual list of amoral strivers, lieberdems and such, when who should appear right after Infamous Ellen Tauscher, but my very own rep from the deep, deep, deep blue coast of the even deeper blue People's Republic of Massachusetts, the honorable William Delahunt, the United States Representative from the 10th District of Massachusetts.

On his way out the door, and in a speech less than two minutes in length, Alberto Gonzales managed to complete his degradation showing a rare competence in that task that escaped him in all others in his many years playing "Fredo Corleone" to George Bush's "Michael Corleone".  

Seemingly trying to convey how exhilirating his time on the national stage was, he said, choking up:

Even my worst days as attorney general have been better than my father’s best days ....

You live here, so you know what's coming ...

It's kinda sad.  He's got his story and he's sticking to it.

Congressman Jerry McNerney did a live chat over at FDL in response to the firestorm of criticism he's brought down on himself with his remarks about the "progress" in Iraq that he saw on his recent tour of the Green Zone.

If listening to repetition of an MSM talking point is your idea of a good time, then follow me over the fold for the ugly details.

Well the latest outrage of the 109th Congress has been revealed, and this one's a doozy.  It's called Coconut Road, and if you haven't heard of it yet, get thee over to TPM where it's just starting to come out.

It's the Alaska delegation again, this time Rep. Don Young (R) AK.  

I feel kind of like the folks at NewHounds (we watch FOX so you don't have to).  I wouldn't have done it by choice, but I was loading brick and the radio was tuned to NPR when On Point's hour with Joe Biden came by, so I figured I'd let it roll on and see if the man brought anything to the table.  After all, even Kos says something good about him every now and then (though I just spent ten minutes searching and couldn't find the reference I'm remembering).

So I gave him a chance.

Is it just me, or is there a rising flood of highly classified political vomit oozing about our ankles, lapping at our knees and spreading over the entire public discourse to the extent that no idea or even simple statement of fact can be recognized for what it is once it enters the tarpit of secrecy?

Yes, dear reader, I've been watching C-Span again - the Gonzalez/NSA affair, and so I refer of course, to the secrets upon secrets that are only as secret as we need them to be and only when we need them to be secret.  Because if the actual content of the secret gets us in less trouble than not keeping the secret secret, then suddenly it's not a secret anymore, or at least not as much of a secret.  In which case, even a super secret can become a non-secret as long as my name is kept secret.

At today's White House press conference, Tony Snow spun the usual bullshit tales.  Apparently, according to huffpo, some heckler got so frustrated that he yelled out that Snow was "insulting our intelligence".

It's certainly nice to know that you're awake back there, Edward R. Murrow, but it's not your intelligence that he's insulting.

Are you one of the seventy or so US Attorneys who isn't yet directly implicated in USAGate?

Guess what?  The rules have changed.  Between here and January '09, you have nothing to worry about.  Want to fax a photocopy of your hairy ass to some pinhead up at Main Justice?  Go for it.  And that business about serving at the pleasure of the president?  That's over baby - you serve at your own pleasure now.  GW himself couldn't change a light bulb in your office now without Patrick Leahy subpoenaing the receipt he got for it at Home Depot.

Job security.  That's the good news.

From the AP Wire:

BLOGOVILLEA: Yet another split in the fragile, new Democratic coalition showed itself today over the unlikely topic of sympathy for Tony Snow.

Hillary and Obama, this is for you.  I know that you two are just looking for a graceful way to get out of the Nevada FOX debate.  When I face this kind of dilemma, I like to fall back on that old standby -

<center>The Previous Engagement</center>

Lucky for you, you both have a previous engagement.  Way back in November, both of you were invited to Klondike's 2008 Presidential Bake-Off on that exact night.

Yeah, you heard me.  Sock it to me baby.  I love the user blogrolls, love'm to death, but you know what? I want more.  I want the blogroll to end all blogrolls. I want the all-inclusive, dailykos mega blogroll.

What the hell are you talking about klondike?

In todays Boston Globe Magazine, writer Charlie Pierce takes a look at the moribund Massachusetts Republican Party and claims to see the seed of a national Republican rennaissance.  Let's follow the bouncing ball and see if Charlie found a pony, or a pile of nothing.

As you know, Miss Manners fields queries from all over the world on all manner of social norms.  Lately, Miss M has been receiving an increasing stream of international queries concerning what can only be described as "liberation behavior".  

So here, to address all the questions you've been afraid to ask about how to behave in a liberation situation, is the fabulous Miss M.

Short diary today.  An AP story now posted on CNN's front page, seemingly out of the blue, detonated an improvised reality device under the straight talk express carrying Republican '08 hopeful John McCain.

Yesterday, I barked righteous outrage to a loyal, but truly disturbed fan base over the this email from the DSCC featuring the photo-anti-genic mug of James Carville.

Today ...