Dear Friends,

I’m disappointed too. I’m less disappointed in what this President said he was going to be vs. what he is than I am between that and what I wanted him to be. He has not lived up to all of his promises, but even looking at his promises he never said he was going to be our knight in shining armor. Republicans said he would be… but who can trust anything they say at this point?

I am frustrated and I am disappointed because I believe, like you do, that there are rare, once in a generation opportunities being lost. I’m frustrated that what I think could be possible right now is not getting done. But as disheartened as I may be at lost potential, even at some outright failures, I have never for a day been sorry I voted for this president. The other choice was John McCain! Hell, if that had happened, Karl Rove wouldn’t be throwing millions of dollars at Republican candidates from Houston, TX… he would still be in Washington throwing hundreds of billions of dollars down far right rat hole after far right rat hole. Are things bad? Yes. Would they have been even worse? Hell yes!

This is not the time… well, there never is a time, but certainly this is not the time for liberals to throw up their hands in defeat. This is the time to take the toe hold we have and make it a foot hold, so we can make that a step, so we can… you know… something like that. I’m not sure exactly where that analogy leads.

But understand my point. This is when we double-down. This is when we fight to reform a broken and corrupted system. This is when we fight to use Joe Lieberman and Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson to demonstrate our power and our conviction. This is when we toy with the Democratic establishment with talk of primary challenges from Al Franken, or Alan Grayson, or Anthony Weiner. This is when we send letters of support to members of the Progressive Caucus and demand that they stand firm.

Our nation is in a deep hole of conservatism that you and I know skirts along the thin edge of fascism. I would love to jump right out of that hole with an FDR or a JFK or a Johnson, but if that isn’t an option I’ll be damned if I’m going to give up and watch while the hole gets dug deeper and deeper. I just can’t in good conscience allow that to happen unopposed.

We have to make our stand.

Rough weekend to be a Republican…

• Greenspan says the Republican plan to extend Bush’s taxcuts without paying for them would be “disastrous”.
• Reagan’s Director of OMB says Republicans have “crippled the economy”.
• Zakaria says the Bush tax cuts are the “single largest chunk of our structural deficit.”
• Bill Kristol says Republicans should “just shut up.”
• The Governor of Arizona said their draconian immigration law may not actually improve border security.

Glad I’m not in charge of spinning all that!