As his Iraq adventure disintegrates before his eyes, and as more and more Americans are unwilling to give him any benefit of the doubt, George W. Bush is once again pulling out the let’s scare’em with terrorism card.

            And while there is no doubt that this despicable ploy is just that, we should not fall into the trap of only accusing him of crying wolf. Because, putting aside the lies that our government dishes out everyday, there is no question that at this point, there are indeed terrorists who would love nothing more than to launch an attack in The United States.

            If a successful attack should happen, and all we’ve been doing is accusing Bush of raising the level of fear, then we’ll immediately find ourselves on the defensive with many Americans rallying around the President once again as the only one to “keep us safe”.

            Instead, our message should be unequivocal and clear. There WILL undoubtedly be another terrorist attack, and if it is successful, it will be because this President has ignored crucial border security in order to provide for his military adventure in Iraq.

            The Democrats’ message is stuck in reaction mode. Bush makes a grandly idiotic policy decision, or makes some statement framing the debate just as Karl Rove has instructed him, and all the Democrats simply respond by disagreeing in vague and tentative tones, making sure that they never stray from the very framework that Bush has articulated.

            We need to go after this criminal administration in the same way that we would go after any public enemy or scourge. We need to be pointing out relentlessly that Bush is not keeping America safe; he’s creating enemies faster than we can possibly apprehend them, and he has neglected this vaunted “Homeland” that he has suddenly thrust into our lexicon. The only action that this administration can take to improve our security is to get out of Iraq and change their approach to diplomacy in the region. Bush is creating the conditions for another terror attack by his policies. This should be our outcry.

            If we simply express skepticism about his fear mongering, we will be rewarded with another terror event, either through the administration’s incompetence or complicity. Either way, we will once again find ourselves watching in amazement as Americans decide that they can’t risk going against the President in a time a crisis. 

            And the next attack will doubtlessly usher in the new era of facism for which Bush and Company have been patiently been laying the groundwork. It must be the citizens of this nation who say “I told you so” in the event of anther attack. If George Bush is saying it instead, then it will be too late for Democracy in America.

I think it's fair to say that everyone who front pages here has a slightly different reason for doing it, and a slightly different set of objectives. Regular visitors know that I'm a Dem partisan. As for my reasons and objectives, I recognize that we're in a hard-wired political system that will ultimately accomodate only two parties, whatever those two may call themselves. That getting frustrated and adding parties doesn't alter this rather annoying reality, and that – short of truly radical change (which simply adding a party is most assuredly not) – to do as much good as possible therefore means making the “leftist” party – the Democrats – as effective and responsive as possible.

Recently, I've been receiving more criticism from other Dems for having the gall to criticize members of “my own team.” Tonight I received one such email from a state Representative. It was phrased in such a way that I felt the need to respond in as thorough and complete a way as possible, and after consideration, I thought it might be appropriate to share my response here. Given that we're all here for different reasons, I invite others to chime in on the philosophy of political blogging from their own perspectives.

Sorry. I recognize this is perhaps a bit personal in content, so I would remind anyone who is annoyed by it that the “back” button on your browser is just a mouse click away. My email is on the flip (with some selective snipping to hide identities)…

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Green Mountain Daily exists – to my mind (and as the founder, my mind is of a high degree of relevence, but not the only mind) for a number of reasons. A big piece of it is to give those lefties who are angry, frustrated or feel disenfranchised a home in the Democratic Party. A place to be able to say what's on their minds freely and without retribution or kickback. Historically, if they don't get that, they either a) give up on the party and the process, or b) become Progs. The rise of the national blogosphere has changed that dynamic, and as I saw no one picking up the [netroots] ball here, I did it myself. I think the results have been positive.

But if there's going to be a forum like this, it has to have certain qualities that are non-negotiable. The reason why, for example, the “Prog Blog” will never matter more than a little blip on the radar screen is because its an institutional mouthpiece. Propoganda. GMD, and its cousins such as the DailyKos are not. That is precisely why they are relevent and successful.

Bloggers can smell a phony a mile away. I am forever being accused of being some kind of Democratic Party lapdog. The reason why the charges don't stick is because I'm not, and it's obvious. I say what I think honestly. When I wrote that piece I was mad. And I had already had about 10 conversations with people who were equally mad. They were mad at everybody. The governor, Gaye, you, the world at large. Unfocused rage at a time like that is poisonous to the work we all try to do, so I felt the need to acknowledge – and yes, validate – that rage, but in the process try to channel it.

Now if you think I – or anyone – can do that by stepping up and scolding people for daring to feel pissed off at you, you're seriously deluding yourself. You may be hurt by it, and I understand, but I was mad at you. I think I had a right to be. Your letter suggesting I didn't only stirs it back up again.

But what I can do is acknowledge the frustration and do what I did – that is, to say that the one we should focus our anger at is the Governor who put us all in this situation against all reason. If I'd given you a free pass, I'd have been a phony and everybody would've smelled it.

If you want to know “where the wisdom” in this is, take a look at the last national election. This blogger paradigm has turned the political tables on their heads. Bloggers have generated more money to candidates, more votes to candidates and more elections to Democratic candidates than anything we've ever seen. It would take some serious denial to claim this isn't the case. And this “straight talk” is the way we do things. Part of the reason we HAVEN'T gotten Jim Douglas out is we are about 2-3 years behind the rest of the country on this, so we are not mobilized the way the rest of the country is. And I'm sorry, but I think getting there is more important than all holding hands, singing kumbaya and pretending we agree on everything. We don't and everybody knows it. Denying that weakens us. Accepting it strengthens us, because diversity is strength. Democracy is stronger than consensus. The proof is all around.

An institution with no capacity for rollicking self-criticism is a sick institution, and the two left wing parties in the state have their capacities for self criticism completely broken off into the other. If we don't fix it in ourselves first, the Progs might – in which case they'll kick our asses, and probably deservedly so…

[snip] But if you want to make lemonade out of two lines in a blog post that hurt your feelings, rather than castigate me, why not actually ENGAGE with folks on the site? Post a comment. Post a whole diary. If there's one thing that feeds the frustration, it's this sense that the electeds are too good too muddy themselves with the blogs. Sure you guys REACT to them and complain about them. Why don't you DO something? Get in there! Again, that's part of what has so strengthened the national grassroots/netroots movement. Go to DailyKos on any given day and you're likely to see anywhere from 1-3 user diaries on the sidebar written by the likes of Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Russ Feingold. Earl Blumenauer and so on, and so on.

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