Christy!

It’s depressing that any of this even needs to be said.

Bread and Circuses for everyone.

I put this up a couple threads back. It’s not just on the campaigns that the MSM falls down. O’Hanlon is at it again. Is Hillary seriously thinking of employing this guy if she wins?

Michael O’Hanlon has an op-chart which some of his grad assistants maintain up at the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12.....ref=slogin

This continues the NYT’s tradition of giving free space to any neocon wanting to vent. So what’s the good news?

Iraq’s security environment is considerably improved, with security at its best levels since early 2004. This is largely thanks to the surge-based strategy of Gen. David Petraeus and the heroic efforts — and sacrifice — of so many American and Iraqi troops and police officers

Except of course that this isn’t true. The Sunni insurgency has decreased attacks on American troops because we are actively arming and organizing them in Anbar and elsewhere. There is a also a truce with Sadr’s Mahdi Army which Sadr entered into for both public relations and strategic reasons. Ethnic cleansing has decreased many flashpoints in Baghdad but many of those affected by the cleansing remain internally displaced or in increasingly precarious positions in surrounding countries. Who knows what will happen when they come back. Finally, the scope and nature of American military operations has changed. Big sweeps are far fewer and there has been an increasing reliance on air power. The surge has been irrelevant or marginal to all these events. Sorry, Michael, just because it might be sunny where you are, you can’t attribute the nice weather to your smile.

O’Hanlon does add this qualifier:

But Iraq’s political environment and its economy are only marginally better than a year ago.

With millions of refugees, the country increasingly run by local and regional militias, no recognition by Washington or O’Hanlon that Iraq still has a civil war on its hands, and a weak divided central government that does not want a political settlement (it’s that civil war thing) and would be unable to enforce any such agreement if one were made, I would say that’s one heck of an understatement.

So what is the Bid O’s conclusion?

Given Iraq’s fragile sectarian relations and weak institutions, the likelihood is that further American troop reductions will have to be slow and careful if the progress is to continue

Stay the quagmire. Again this talk of any troop reduction is dishonest. The surge can not be sustained. No matter what, forces would have to start coming out in April or May regardless of conditions on the ground. O’Hanlon makes this sound that this is a choice based on the success of the surge. It isn’t. What O’Hanlon is trying to sell here is a return to the status quo ante, i.e pre-surge levels of around 130,000 troops, and portray this as a real reduction and a kind of victory. The short version is that O’Hanlon and the neocons want to keep a 130,000 troops in Iraq into January 2009. And the NYT is doing what it can to help out.

Ohh Christy. My head hurts.

small typo: journalism 101…

To paraphrase: would you want to get your campaign news from anyone who is willing to put up with a campaign?

I would be willing to do so if there were another Hunter Thompson around to provide it.

But the fact that he bounced between the various campaigns and was not in bed with any of them probably gave him better insights than those who stuck with one campaign the entire season.

Even the left media can be counted on for distortions fitting an agenda. From Glenn Greenwald:

Ezra Klein purports to respond to Thursday’s post about the similarities between the pro-life positions of Harry Reid and Ron Paul by offering a completely dishonest description of my argument: “I find Glenn Greenwald’s defense of Ron Paul’s anti-abortion record deeply bizarre.”

Basic reading comprehension would preclude this description. Not a word of what I wrote or have ever written had anything to do with “defending” Paul’s position on abortion, nor did I state or imply that abortion rights were unimportant. Rather, the post I wrote was about the obvious double standard being applied to Paul’s candidacy.

Klein devotes most of his post to raising trite strawmen that he knows will be pleasing to his TAP readers but have absolutely nothing to do with a single thing I said.

It’s a racket. The want our Bread and think that giving us Circuses is the way to do it.

Glenn’s extends his smackdown of Klein to common leftist media pitfalls:

People like Klein will pretend to find aspects of our political system deeply troubling — I’m so upset that we keep going to war; we’re allowing an erosion of our constitutional liberties; the rule of law is being disregarded — but will then cling exclusively to the most mainstream-acceptable ideas and will view as legitimate only the most mainstream-acceptable political figures, all of which will do nothing about those purported concerns other than ensure they continue. That way, he can applaud himself for being so very concerned about all the right things and for having all the good political values, but never actually have to say or do anything that Chris Matthews would find strange, offensive or out of place.

(Same link as my 8.)

OT: Today’s LA Times contains an Editorial, “Reid retreats on eavesdropping bill: In starting, then stalling, debate, he could botch a deal that helps protect Americans”:

… legislation that would subject eavesdropping on Americans by the National Security Agency to meaningful judicial oversight. Reid retreated in the face of a talkathon by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who opposes a provision in one of two versions of the legislation that would grant retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications firms that cooperated with the NSA.

The editorial was uniformly misinformative.

Re Paul Kane, Glenn Greenwald took him to task here:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/g.....index.html

I agree with Kane about oversight, but I think he completely misses the boat on why Congress’ approval ratings are so low. It wasn’t that Democrats lost, it was that they didn’t fight. The idea that Democrats took all or nothing positions is ludicrous. The Republicans had mapped out a strategy of complete obstruction before the Congress met following the 2006 elections. What Kane is really doing is shifting blame from Republicans to Democrats. They were too demanding. Yeah, right. Reid and Pelosi lost us and most of the rest of the country because they not only did they kowtow to Bush they actively aided and abetted him. They derisively dismissed the majority of Americans who disagreed with them as “advocates” that they as “leaders” had no time to listen to.

What I find in the Kane piece is not a blunt rundown but more of the Village spin.

Hi Christy! Happy Holidays and I do still like to say Merry Christmas. I do a lot of my shopping at bookstores and just happened upon a compilation of essays about “What Orwell Didn’t Know” including one from shhhhh! George Soros!

Anyway, prof quoted therein says we’re not in trouble of Orwellian totalitarianism more than we are of “amusing ourselves to death” as in hedonism a al Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

There’s no business but show business.

Chip Reid may not have much to say about Edwards, but Obama certainly does, even if it’s baloney:

Filed at 3:13 p.m. ET

OSKALOOSA, Iowa (AP) — Opening his latest presidential campaign swing through Iowa, Democrat Barack Obama singled out rival John Edwards for criticism, arguing that the former North Carolina senator doesn’t have a track record to back up the sharply populist themes he sounds on the campaign trail.

”I’ve got a track record,” said Obama. ”I don’t just talk the talk, I walk the walk. John does not have the same track record.”

Yeah Hugh! I get pissed when media people & pundits tell me why I disapprove of Congress. I know why I disapprove of Congress. Because they don’t fight crime in the White House. That’s why!

Do you like how these craven despicable suck-ups characterize a passionate defense of the Constitution and rule of law as a “talkathon”?

They just compulsively attribute their own worst failings to others. I’m a vapid blithering dipshit who spends all day every day discussing narischkeit like Clinton’s cackle; ergo, Dodd speaking all day in front of the Senate = talkathon.

OT: Today’s LA Times contains an Editorial, “Reid retreats on eavesdropping bill: In starting, then stalling, debate, he could botch a deal that helps protect Americans”

So do you think the LA Times gets its talking points from Congressional Republicans or directly from the White House?

I used to think that people who wrote this kind of stuff were stupid or misinformed but now I figure they or at least the people who hire them know exactly what they are doing. The NYT and Washington Post are no different. In the Times case, their masthead should read, “All the spin we’re told to print.”

Hi Christy.

The media folks have been trying to shape our opinions on these races since they focused on the front-runners long before the campaigns even began.

aw, that makes it sound like propaganda or something. surely they wouldn’t print what they’re told to?

/s

Go for the giggles
http://www.thespywhobilledme.c.....billed_me/

Meanwhile, Matt Bai, who reports on the leftist blogosphere for MSM, attempts, and fails, to explain Clintonian triangulation:

There were five syllables that for these Democrats summed up all the failures of Clintonism: “triangulation.” The word was originally popularized by Dick Morris, who advised Clinton in the dark days of the mid-’90s (and who, not incidentally, was brought in to the White House by the first lady). Triangulation, as Morris intended it, is probably best described as the strategy of co-opting the issues that attract voters to your opponents by substituting centrist solutions for the ideological ones they propose, thus depriving them of victory. (In other words, if your opponents are getting traction with their demands to dismantle a broken welfare system, you acknowledge the problem but propose a middle-ground way of restructuring it instead.) To a lot of avid Democrats, however, triangulation became shorthand for gutless compromise, for saying and doing whatever you think you must in order to win.

The media folks have been trying to shape our opinions on these races since they focused on the front-runners long before the campaigns even began

In a lot of ways they created the frontrunners by telling us who they were. Their idea of mixing it up is to covern Hillary and Obama one day and Obama and Hillary the next.

Hi, just circling back to give credit where due.

Neil Postman is the prof who wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death. From wiki:

Postman’s best known book is Amusing Ourselves to Death, published in 1985, a historical narrative which deplores the decline of the communication medium as television images have replaced the written word. Postman argues that television confounds serious issues with entertainment, demeaning and undermining political discourse by making it less about ideas and more about image.blockquote>

my bold.

Christy, I left you a comment at the bottom of the Pull up a Chair thread - in case you have not seen it.

To a lot of avid Democrats, however, triangulation became shorthand for gutless compromise, for saying and doing whatever you think you must in order to win.

Yes, we all have to beware of those “avid” Democrats, especially the ones who have not had thir shots.

they created the frontrunners by telling us who they were.

Exactly. I hate this. Especially living here as I do in California.

In a lot of ways they created the frontrunners by telling us who they were. Their idea of mixing it up is to covern Hillary and Obama one day and Obama and Hillary the next.

my point exactly

And Matt Bai deifies Bubba:

In his later years, the Big Dog, as bloggers sometimes refer to him, has transcended politics and even ordinary celebrity; like Paul McCartney or Muhammad Ali, Clinton is now a historical figure who remains a breathing, walking presence, and when he enters a room of strangers, even those who didn’t vote for him react as if witnessing a small miracle. On Veterans Day, as I trailed Clinton through South Carolina, he dropped in on Jack’s Cosmic Dogs, where he ordered up a chili dog with fries — now that his foundation was on a crusade against childhood obesity, Clinton told me with mock gravity, it was vital that he sample the offending food every so often — and made his way to all the tables so the customers could swoon and take pictures.

“Oh, these iPhones take good pictures!” he exclaimed to one young mother as she looked around for a volunteer photographer to snap her portrait with the former president. A few minutes later, I heard him talking into another woman’s cellphone while she looked on nervously. “Hi, there, this is Bill Clinton! No, seriously! It is!”

(Same link as my 21.)

Thanks for digging up that quote.

Now what explains the fact that even supposedly serious print journalism is currently “demeaning and undermining political discourse by making it less about ideas and more about image”?
Could it be that print journalismists want to be “famous” like those journalismists they see on TV?

And Matt Bai deifies Bubba

which makes it only natural that he should eat at Jack’s Cosmic Dogs.

I don’t have an answer for that one, although I have noticed the trend for more writers to appear on TV to opine as experts…

And Matt Bai essentially declares the Clintonization of the entire spectrum of American politics:

“Despite all the protestations, Clinton’s third-way politics and governing philosophy have as much of a hold on these Democratic candidates as the New Deal mind-set did on generations before,” says Jonathan Cowan, whose think tank, Third Way, has emerged as the next iteration of the D.L.C. “Clinton’s politics have basically become the DNA of Democrats seeking the White House, and it’s almost certain that they would all govern from that Clintonian center if they actually became president.” Even the party’s leaders in Congress, newly empowered by an uprising against Republican hegemony, continue to speak in the measured tones of Clintonian centrism.

Clinton’s rhetorical influence, in fact, spans not just the Democratic Party but really the entire spectrum of American politics.

(Same link as my 21.)

Got to go. Totally OT but I found these pictures fascinating. Several of them look like they could have been done in the Renaissance.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared.....tml/10.stm

Do I think we’ll get a decent president elected next year? Only if I and we work for it.

The “Third Way, has emerged as the next iteration of the D.L.C”

Even one of these was too many.

Thus surrendering long held principles and moving the center ever rightwards.

who are you supporting these days kiddo?

Wait a minute, wait a minute!

Someone tell me what Clintonian centrism is versus bipartisanship.

puke.

OT, but this has me laughing:

Jumbo 747 Hostel http://feeds.greenoptions.com/.....204626419/
from Green Options by Max Lindberg

Visitors to Stockholm could soon have a new option for cheap airport accommodation – a Boeing 747 at Arlanda airport. Uppsala businessman Oscar Diös has been given permission by airport owner LFV and the Swedish National Roads Administration to open a youth hostel in a Jumbo Jet parked by the airport entrance. Read all about it at […]

Wow, texbetsy, that sounds like a lemonade out of lemons story. Or a “green” solution to recycling airplane waste or something.

We in Oklahoma are sad today. We have lost one of “ours”. We have lost Kristine Brown. She was our oldest living resident. She was 110. When she was a girl she lived in the Cherokee Strip. Ms. Brown was a teacher. She studied mathematics at Columbia University and began her teaching career teaching in one room schoolhouses. Brown was also a professor at Nortwestern Oklahoma University.

Here’s how Matt Bai defines Clintonian centrism:

Few American politicians talked about “globalization” before Clinton, as a candidate, stood on factory floors and argued that the next era’s economy would be nothing like the last, and that for workers, the transition would be painful but also full of promise. Clinton wasn’t the first candidate to grasp this change and to put it into words, but he was by far the most persuasive. He also articulated a philosophy of how to deal with these challenges that transcended the binary ideological struggle between outright entitlement and Darwinian self-reliance. When you go into a hospital now and see a placard on the wall that lists a patient’s “rights” directly opposite his “responsibilities” as a citizen, that’s Clinton’s influence. At its best, Clintonism represented a more modern relationship between government and individuals, one that demanded responsibilities of both.

(Same link as my 21.)

Kiddo, sorry for your (state’s) loss. She sounds like a remarkable woman.

Globalization has surely helped the working men and women of America. Now hasn’t it? Why… I don’t know what we’d do without union busting, NAFTA, CAFTA, the WTO and outsourcing.

How could anyone possibly think that the DLC doesn’t have the best interests of labor at heart?

Thank you. Merry Christmas to the Lone Star State. ;0)

The Police State working to make you “safer”.

CLARKSBURG, W. Va. — The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world’s largest computer database of peoples’ physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad.

WaPo

Obama and Hillary. Wonder what ’sandbox news’ these two leaders will come up with today?

Rudy as fascist on cover of American Conservative.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/.....oritarian/

Have you noticed that neither my party or the Republicans are talking about the issues?

The Bush family’s good buddy Saudi King Abdullah has pardoned the young woman known as “Qatif Girl” who was gang-raped and then sentenced to 200 lashes and six months imprisonment for “improper mingling”.

Not a typo — that was on purpose.

the country internalizes these stupid adolescent assessments of the candidates and we get stuck with an imbecile like George W. Bush because he kidded around on the campaign plane and gave them cute nicknames.

Everybody has to stay very vigilant to this because the playing field in this puerile game is tilted toward the kind of men these boys and girls apparently wanted to date or wanted to be in high school — the macho, manly kind who all grew up to be Republicans.

but but but

bush was a putz, he wasn’t a bmog, if not for his father bush would have been the class whipping boy

sorry, bush isn’t a charismat, he isn’t an anything, he’s a tag along

Yes, I noticed that was announced very close to the breaking story of Jamie Leigh Jones, same horrible treatment and no justice for her.

He looks fetching in a brown shirt.

-G

They are talking about issues, it just isn’t getting reported by and large. If you go on YouTube, almost all of the candidates regularly post video of campaign Q&As in Iowa, NH and beyond — wherein candidates answer audience questions, a lot of which are very substantive — or where they talk to various people in much more depth about issues than they have been asked about in debates by the “very serious journalists.”

You have to do the digging on your own, though, to find it, because it isn’t getting air time or print space in large part. Hence, the need for this post…

Sorry to disagree. Dubya was the class bully. No doubt in my mind.

In terms of the Iowa Caucus, rather than following this years strange political reporting, I would suggest you watch the Weather Channel.
My guess is that on the Democratic side the weather will go a long way to deciding it. If the weather is nasty on January 3rd, look for Edwards to surprise.

I suspected that…*g* I checked post linked to to get a clue.

I assume from your screen name that you’re male. I think I’ve never heard a male use the word ‘fetching.’ Kinda makes my day. (Well after the big pot of venison chili that’s sitting on the stove awaiting dinner, with aromas pervading the house.)

And the class cheerleader.

Hi Oldgold, I mean this in a fun way. Your comment sounds like a political version of the Farmers’ Almanac!

Oh, I’m digging on my own. Please be assured of that. I don’t look at MSM or watch the Sunday taking brains. But obviously a lot of folks do. ;0)

right. And we all know cheerleaders and bullies are not mutually exclusive! No offense to really nice cheerleaders!

Then Edwards supporters will hope for bad weather in Iowa on 1/3. But why? Because Edwards supporters are more intense on him? If so, why?

Did you read the Kane piece that I linked? Because I found both this point:

With Friends Like These. The single greatest success for Democrats in 2007 was likely their oversight investigations in both chambers. From probes of the Pentagon’s handling of the death of NFL star-turned-special forces ace Pat Tillman to those missing White House e-mails of Karl Rove’s, Democrats made the administration take notice. And quite often Republicans were left to shrug their shoulders and agree. The probes of Alberto R. Gonzales’s firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 epitomized the zealous and efficient oversight by House and Senate Judiciary committees. On April 19, the attorney general appeared before the Senate panel to tell his side of the story. It was brutal. He stammered, he dodged, he pleaded ignorance, he pleaded and he pleaded. Finally, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the most conservative Senate Republican, told the beleaguered Gonzales he needed to “suffer the consequences” of those prosecutors. “I believe that the best way to put this behind us is your resignation,” he said. Stunningly, it took Gonzales four more months to realize his political capital in Washington was destroyed. He announced his resignation Aug. 27.

And this one:

A Whole Lott of Dollars. Nothing may symbolize the state of Congress - the Republican Party, life in the minority and the overall lack of fun these days in the Capitol - more than Trent Lott’s retirement. The Mississippi Republican is not running from scandal, not running from a pending indictment. No, Lott just wants more money now, at 66, because he’s not having fun anymore in the Senate. He’s the first senator to ever leave midterm to become a lobbyist. In his farewell speech, after 35 years in the House and Senate, Lott thanked his colleagues and gave us all a lesson to follow. “I believe whatever you do in your life you should find a way to enjoy it and have fun. I have to say I have had fun in the Senate because I really enjoyed it. That is all there is to it,” he said.

to be uncharacteristically straightforward and blunt about motivations and consequences for a WaPo politics assessment.

Snowing and the temperature has dropped 15 degrees while the rain turned to ice in NE Iowa. Weather will definately be a factor.

Let me get this straight. The front runners are talking about the issues?

Hmmm. will have to think back on my high school daze to see what the correlation was between cheerleaders & bullies.

big pot of venison chili

YUMM!!

Matt Stoller upstairs with Wes Clark…

TexBetsy, are the teens still holding out for the mega-computers?

well, you’re a dude. we girls know the truth about those cheerleaders and what darkness lurked behind those Pepsodent smiles…no, I’m not bitter. why do you ask?

Um…news flash. They’ve already been doing this for quite some time. This is just an upgrade to an already existing system…to revamp it for available technology that enhances what they have already been able to do for quite a while. Welcome to Philip K. Dick writ real.

We have ‘blowing snow here’. Like you guys, it’s a bit nippy here. Merry Christmas to Iowa. ;0)

I think from a personal standpoint that Edwards was successful and has built a strong organization. We will make darn sure our longterm supporters get there. Turnout is always tied to weather for the johnny comelately supporters.

kiddo — How do you define frontrunnr? Only as Hillary or folks within the margin of error? And yes, they are. Just take a peek at the Foreign Affairs foreign policy essays that I’ve linked up several times here for starters. And then do a YouTube search. It isn’t all the short-cut platitudes that the teevee media likes to showcase.

Obama ain’t one to talk. He just voted for Boosh’s Peru FTA.

found this terrific page on cheney bush, they link to anti bush sites, they linked me to this

tube on impeachment, he’s not bad

eCAHN is not a dude…

Two heavy hitting celebs, I can’t deal, so I’ll lurk.

Enjoy (waving from the back row.)

How is Kane so sure that Lott isn’t running from scandal? Doesn’t he read the blogs?

uh oh! sorreee!

Why?
1]Edwards has the best ground organiztion. That becomes more important in bad weather.
2]Hilary’s strength is with older voters. They will not venture out at night in nasty weather.
3]Obama is strong with newbies and has the weakest ground oranization.
This spells trouble on a rough night.

Do you think it’s possible Lott could be resigning for health reasons? He looked terrible, especially next to Mitch McConnell, and that’s saying something.

Bush is definitely a bully. The kind that picks on those smaller than he. The kind that belittles people with snide remarks. The kind that uses his position to inappropriately touch people. The kind that rubs your nose in his ’successes’. The kind that reminds everyone of his power everytime he’s proven to be ignorant. The kind that is too stupid too realize that he’s regarded as an arrogant, stupid ass.
It wears thin after a while.

Boosh wasn’t the class bully. If anything, he paid someone to be the enforcer. Darth Vader was the class bully.

Yes, What you meant. Thanks Old Gold

carmen — It’s absolutely possible that health factored into it. But with his brother-in-law having just been indicted on bribery charges, and his son as a lobbyist with a thriving shop raking in energy money at the moment, I’d say there are any number of factors that likely apply — not just one.

How do I define “frontrunners”? Those from either party, at any point, who seem to have a viable shot at becomming the nominee. And fyi only, we in this house are all over “youtube” and just about anything alse political our greesy little keyboards can get their hands on. Let’s discuss what issues the ‘forntrunners’ are discussing today. And from where those issues are being discussed. Shall we? ;0)

What became of that anti lobbying bill or some such in the wake of Ted Stevens troubles. I thought there was now a law against lobbying if you were a congresscritter or some limitations. Sorry I don’t have the steel trap memory that firedogs do.

GregB, formerly known as GSD.

-G

It was passed and becomes effective the first of the year. That’s one of the reasons Lott resigned - if he had waited until after 1/1/08, he would have had to wait two years to become a lobbyist instead of waiting for one which is the current law.

Ahhhh!

thanks for the quick answer.

kiddo — I’m not interested in getting into some pissing match today. All I’m saying is that there are any number of videos out there of town hall discussion. I was watching some Edwards ones yesterday, as a matter of fact, and I think we can agree that he has a shot at the Iowa caucuses based on current numbers. So, yes, there are candidates who are discussing issues. And yes, the videos of these discussions are fairly easy to find with rudimentary searching skills. And I’m going to leave it at that…

I just had a discussion with some friends about the Cigna death and universal health care. Their opinion was that there’s no way we can change our healthcare system. As evidence, they note that the frontrunners aren’t pushing it. I said Edwards is. They said ‘but he won’t win’.
We need Edwards. Bad.

IRT Lott: I’m suspicious of that explanation. It’s such a reprehensible reason to leave the Senate that it makes me think that the real reason is even worse.

Thank you. I appreciate your help. Merry Christmas. And Happy New Year. ;0)

Conyers does NOT care about Wexler’s Petition to start Cheney impeachment hearings!

Read the transcript from Democracy Now.

http://willyloman.wordpress.co.....-petition/

He will NOT allow impeachment hearings to take place.

Conyers knows that Pelosi will undercut the efforts of impeachment rather than helping to build a bi-partisan coalition to impeach.

Conyers knows that Pelosi will again be Speaker of the House next year and she will take him off the Judiciary Committee if he goes against her wishes. It’s a “lose-lose” for him and impeachment.

Let’s help him and the rest of the members of the House of Representatives by removing an obstructionist Speaker. It can be done and must be done to start the impeachment process.

http://www.petitiononline.com/.....ition.html

eCAHN — In case you drop in here, this is the sole comment that was pulled:

“Am I the only one who sees Clark as platitudinous?”

And it was because it was deliberately rude to the guest. Every other comment of yours is in the Clark thread. Whatever your beef, you can ask questions as you like — but being deliberately rude to a guest in the discussion thread is not acceptable. Today or ever. That has always been our policy with guests and it is neither new nor different for that thread.

Feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions.

ecahn - i think we’re allowed to be rude in other threads, just not the one with the guest. if i have that right, i’ll definitely join you in a bit of rudeness after the end of the visit.

Removal of the current Democratic congressional leadership should be the number-one issue in the Democratic congressional primaries. All other issues pale by comparison.