Left-Leaning Bloggers Should Be Proud

It's hard to rally people together. In my lifetime, I can only point to a few times where enormous groups of people came together around a single event... one of them being the 500,000+ people that marched in NYC last August. That was really exciting, and I can only hope that I can bring my daughter to an event like that someday.

I think as we become more like hermits, busily tapping away at our keyboards and not gathering enough energy to make a phone call let alone driving all our asses to one place and time to protest something, liberal bloggers have discovered that they can still make a difference by only taking a little time to screw around on the computer.

This is one example of what we can accomplish just from behind our desks:


Member of Congress, front from left to right, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee, D-Texas, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., accompanied by aides, walk down Pennsylvania Ave., towards the White House as they hand-deliver petitions, Thursday, June 16, 2005 in Washington. The petitions are signed by 105 members of Congress and more than 540,000 Americans demanding that President Bush provide a detailed response to the evidence in the 'Downing Street Memo'. The so-called 'Downing Street memo' says the Bush administration believed that war was inevitable and was determined to use intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the ouster of Saddam. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

My name is on one of those pieces of paper there. Along with more than 540,000 other people's names. Are we all insane conspiracy theorists? Are we all just insane people desperate to take down our government? Right wingers would have middle-of-the-road people believing we're slobbering at the mouth to expose their children to gay porn and encouraging teen sex so we can turn around and push them into getting an abortion.

No, we are not. I see it as my duty as an American citizen to stand up and say something when the government acts in a way I do not approve. Maybe the majority of people approve of the way the government acts, as it apparently did back in November 2004. But maybe as time goes by and the government continues to act in more devious ways, or contradicts it's own stance, or the justifications for their actions sound more and more lame.

But we left-leaners can take heart that we are doing something, even if it seems like a small effort. We are being credited with helping to bring the DSM to the US mainstream media, where we have been wallowing in a black hole of "news" such as a formerly black man who likes little boys and a formerly hot poptart who has decided to turn into frumpy white trash.

Just a couple of hours ago, the AP released a rather long article...

When Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief foreign policy adviser dined with Condoleezza Rice six months after Sept. 11, the then-U.S. national security adviser didn't want to discuss Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida. She wanted to talk about "regime change" in Iraq, setting the stage for the U.S.-led invasion more than a year later.

President Bush wanted Blair's support, but British officials worried the White House was rushing to war, according to a series of leaked secret Downing Street memos that have renewed questions and debate about Washington's motives for ousting Saddam Hussein...

"U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida is so far frankly unconvincing," Ricketts says in the memo. "For Iraq, `regime change' does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam."

The documents confirm Blair was genuinely concerned about Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction, but also indicate he was determined to go to war as America's top ally, even though his government thought a pre-emptive attack may be illegal under international law...

"If 11 September had not happened, it is doubtful that the U.S. would now be considering military action against Iraq," Straw wrote. "In addition, there has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with OBL (Osama bin Laden) and al-Qaida."

While there are many staunch Bush supporters that will simply bury their heads in the sand or act as if this changes nothing, I think this will further diminish Bush's numbers in the polls as more moderates realize just what this all means.