Responding to Sir Charles's highly nuanced and full of legalese post regarding the definitions of torture, Cogitamus blogger Lisa Simeone wrote in comments:
Democrats have consistently shown themselves to be no better than this murderous administration. They have been weak, cowardly, craven, pusillanimous, dunderheaded, deceitful, and obsequious. They have actively helped this administration commit the horrors it is committing.
The difference between the liberal and conservative blogospheres is that we don't reflexively and blindly defend anyone with a (D) after their name. Well, I take that back. Conservative bloggers are quick to criticize any Republican politician who turns out to be gay a totally heterosexual man who happens to have sex with other men, who doesn't obsess about illegal immigrants and who labors under the misapprehension that 24 is a fictional TV show designed to entertain more than inform.
Everyone knows that cleansing this nation of George Bush and his toxic legacy has to be the top priority. A Democrat must occupy the White House next January and the Democratic majorities in Congress must be expanded. We don't have any choice in the matter simply because words like "crisis" and "dire" do nothing to adequately describe this nation's condition.
But after the Democrats are sworn in next January, we need another Revolution in this country. Not with guns, so settle down. But a real revolution nonetheless, one in which America's progressive movement turns on the Democratic politicians they just helped to put in office and works to remove as many of them as possible in favor of other, better Democrats. Democrats who won't vote for the AUMF - and then claim it wasn't authorization for war at that - who won't write, sponsor and help pass the hideous bankruptcy bill, the Patriot[s Under Suspicion] Act, the Protect America Act Turn the USA Into A Police State Act, the Smoggy Skies Act, No Child Left Untested and Able to Learn - all of the horrible, horrible legislation to come out of Congress the last seven years.
We need Democrats who will remind Broder and the Gang just who actually governs and who doesn't. Democrats who will stand up for their constituents in the face of GOP opposition. And, people being people, Democratic politicians who start every day with the sure knowledge that if they muck it up, there will be a well-funded, well-organized primary opponent who will probably beat them in the next election.
Sometimes I think it would be a good idea to burn certain portions of DC to the ground and start over somewhere else. But as cathartic as such a thing might be - and as healing for the nation as it could be, at least in the short term - it won't solve the problem. Washington, DC is a twisting vortex of evil because of the people who go there to mock our heritage of freedom, civil liberties and democracy. We've got to cut off that supply, at least from the Democratic side of things.
