Sen. Chris Dodd's recent success in blocking legislation giving retroactive telecom immunity for warrantless surveillance was a real world example of how a detailed working knowledge of the legislative rules and procedures makes a leader more effective. It's not just officials who need to know the process, it's essential for citizens to be well informed as well for our system to work. As Thomas Jefferson said, "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government." I know I'm thankful for all the work the likes of Kagro X, Adam B, Christy Hardin Smith, Jeralyn Merritt, McJoan and Marcy Wheeler do on a regular basis educating people about the process.

Does Sen. Clinton promote understanding of our process when she says people who vote "present" are avoiding tough choices or is she just promoting ignorance of our system of government? No.

More on the flip...

Bush is going to give a speech comparing Iraq to Vietnam. This diary is a reference for the press, to highlight the past mentions of this analogy by the Bush Administration, all mocking the same comparison. The examples below from a Google search of 'Iraq + Vietnam' on whitehouse.gov:

1) Q Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, April is turning into the deadliest month in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad, and some people are comparing Iraq to Vietnam and talking about a quagmire. Polls show that support for your policy is declining and that fewer than half Americans now support it. What does that say to you and how do you answer the Vietnam comparison?

THE PRESIDENT: I think the analogy is false. I also happen to think that analogy sends the wrong message to our troops, and sends the wrong message to the enemy. Look, this is hard work. It's hard to advance freedom in a country that has been strangled by tyranny. And, yet, we must stay the course, because the end result is in our nation's interest.

More on the flip...

The Clinton and Obama camps' fight over the Iraq War vote has spilled over into the today's WaPo:

Mark Penn and Obama strategist David Axelrod engaged in a pointed and occasionally heated exchange during a public forum at Harvard University over the issue that has become the central point of dispute between the two leading candidates for the 2008 Democratic nomination. [...]

The Clinton campaign later supplied several Obama quotations from 2004 to buttress Penn's attack. One came from the New York Times, in which Obama declined to criticize the Democratic Party's presidential and vice presidential nominees, Sen. John F. Kerry and then-Sen. John Edwards, for supporting the 2002 war resolution. "But I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports," Obama said, according to the Times.

All 100 US Senators were privy to the full classifed Iraq NIE complete with INR, DOE, and US Air Force intelligence dissents. Only 6 bothered to read it. Was Sen. Hillary Clinton one of the six?

More on the flip...

Happy Anniversary John McCain!

Exactly 1 year ago you were on Meet the Press saying it wasn't realistic to add more troops in Iraq. Today you call Iraq War supporters who agree with you 12/05 remarks "immoral". George Will calls that rigorous moral reasoning. I call it bullshit. Here's John McCain, 12/4/05 on NBC:

MR. RUSSERT: Should we send more American troops and do we have the troops to send?

SEN. McCAIN: I've wanted to send troops. I still think we should have more troops there. But it's not going to happen. And that's just reality. It's not going to happen. But we really needed to expand the size of the Marine Corps and the Army so we didn't have this terrific strain on our Guard and Reserve, particularly our Guard units.

Will says moral reasoning requires If you will an end, you must will the means to that end.

McCain says it takes more troops to win in Iraq but what is he doing about it? More on the flip...

Ned Lamont just did the smartest thing yet in his campaign for US Senate. Lamont exploded the myth that Lieberman is a competent leader on Homeland Security. In fact Lieberman's been AWOL on his signature issue.

AP: Lamont also says Lieberman, ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, mistakenly agreed to put the troubled Federal Emergency Management Agency under the control of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

"I think FEMA worked really well when it had professional management as an independent agency," Lamont said in an interview this week. "And sure, it was Senator Lieberman who said, 'Let's redo FEMA.' It was Senator Lieberman who said, 'Let's put Michael Brown as No. 2 at FEMA.'"

I've been waiting for so long to hear that in a major media outlet. Joe Lieberman has been the worst kind of Monday Morning Quarterback on Katrina. I'll explain why on the flip...

Today, Ned Lamont is the only Democrat running for US Senate in Connecticut. Ned Lamont is the Democratic nominee for US Senate and will appear as such on the ballot this fall. Joe Lieberman will appear as anything but a Democrat according to CT Law:

Sec. 9-453u. (Formerly Sec. 9-378m). Reservation of party designation.

(b) The statement shall include the offices for which candidates may petition for nomination under the party designation to be reserved but shall not include an office if no elector who has signed the application is entitled to vote at an election for such office.

(c) The statement shall include the party designation to be reserved which (1) shall consist of not more than three words and not more than twenty-five letters; (2) shall not incorporate the name of any major party;

By law, Lieberman cannot run again and call himself any form of Democrat on the ballot. More on the flip...