The notion of occupying Afghanistan for the sake of women’s rights was always spurious. Women’s rights are not traditionally respected in war zones. Not even the Obama Administration is making this argument anymore.

But I guess that was kind of the last justification Dean had for the policy, and with that done, he’s turned completely away. He added, “The Vietnam War showed us we shouldn’t prop up corrupt governments, and that’s what we’ve got in Afghanistan.”

So, Dean and Newt had a debate last night at George Washington University, and this was pretty awesome, too.

During the summer of 2006, when Rahm Emanuel and Howard Dean were engaged in a strenuous fight over the future direction of the Democratic Party, I stumbled upon a very astute op-ed in the New York Times by an emerging politician scientist, Daniel Galvin, entitled “How to Grow a Democratic Majority.”

Democrats are accepting the budget-busting extension of the Bush tax cuts because of the stimulative effect expected from the other provisions in the bill. Republicans see those other provisions, essentially, as the impetus to cut spending and essentially cancel out the stimulative properties.

In Herding Donkeys Ari Berman tells a compelling story about how the Dean campaign sparked a grassroots resurgence and laid the foundation for the Democrats’ improbable success over the next 4 years. He captures some of the untold stories from the 2004 campaign and Howard Dean’s years at the helm of the DNC where, despite the ire of Rahm Emanual and other establishment Democrats, his 50-state strategy helped lead the Democrats out of the desert and back into the majority.

Howard Dean, who once stood for some decent principles, tells us that those who want to build a Muslim center in New York City should be looking for a “compromise” that would place the center somewhere that didn’t cause a controversy. So long, Howard.

The White House obsession with criticizing the “professional left” comes from one harsh truth: that the left has been right on major issues from health care to the stimulus.

In the end, it is the decision of the South Dakota Democratic Party and its leaders to take their ball and go home, but you really have to wonder what the hell has happened at the national level. Tim Kaine, Bob Menendez, I’m looking at you.

When we pointed out that this is in fact what the bill does, Ezra dismissed it as “helping activists kill the bill” rather than “actually informing anyone about what is in the bill.” According to Ezra, “the restriction here is not on the right to choose, but on whether primary insurance covers abortion.” Therefore, since the goal of the bill is not restricting a woman’s right to choose, the fact that it does so anyway is just a coincidence and therefore not a valid reason to object to the bill’s passage.

Is the end nigh?