Dropping the Ball

Like any sane American, I'm looking to Nov. 7 as a watershed event in American history: the day when the most corrupt, lawless administration that has ever occupied the seats of power gets shown the door. Make no mistake: anything less than a clear mandate from the American people that they have Had Enough will be taken by BushCo as a mandate for their agenda. We need to win, and we need to win big.

As Robert Parry notes, the Party Without a Spine seems to be laying back and letting the action come to them. I have The Fear that this is a terrible mistake.

How many times, lo these last years, have the Republicans lobbed up a softball, perfect for smacking out the park, only to see the Dems refuse to take a swing. Here are a few:

- most recently, the Military Commissions Act, a particularly ugly and un-American piece of legislation that jeopardizes habeas rights for all Americans;

- electronic voting with no paper trail: seriously, is there anyone who thinks this is a grand idea? Sure, lobbyists for Diebold are giddy, but that's gotta be a small and lonely crowd;

- a couple of weeks back, Bush said that he would stay the course in Iraq if "only my wife and my dog agreed with me." Wha....? Huh? Surely I heard that wrong.

And I could go on in listing the insults and outrages, large and small, that have been heaped on our heads by BushCo. I'm pissed, and so are you. Whatcha got, Dems? Something like a cross between Keith Olbermann and Hunter S. Thompson would work for me.

***** crickets ****** the wind whistles across the prairie ******

Yeah, that's what I thought. The polls, strongly in your favor at this point, tell you that it's time to play it safe, to keep your mouth shut. Let me clue you in, boys and girls: the Had Enough segment of the country is not looking for NotBush, for Republican Lite, for mealy-mouthed wafflers and triangulators. They, we, I, we're looking for vision, for someone to level with us no matter how hard the truth is. We want to hear about a whole new path.

Sadly, we've heard none of this; not even close, and hence The Fear. Because, at the end of the day, there is this: Republicans stand for something, no matter how wrongheaded it may be. What does Joe Biden stand for? Or, for all his oratorial skills, Barack Obama? For Gawd's sake, say something; take a stand. Out here in the real world, us grownups do it all the time. You might be surprised at the result.