In order to be reborn, of course, but I'm ready these days to just abandon the Democratic Party altogether, as it appears to be run entirely by incompetent, spineless idiots. My anger was already primed by the embarrassing spectacles last week over Alberto Gonzales (how many of our senators will vote for torture?), and by the Ohio business, and by the prospect of Tim Roemer as DNC chair.

But now my head is about to explode after reading about Democrat Christine Gregoire, the new sorta-kinda governor of Washington State, where I live. First, one of the alt weeklies out here published a smart smackdown of both the Republican, Dino Rossi, and Gregoire. The article was titled "Wimp vs. Demagogue," which could pretty much describe the state of Democrats vs. Republicans throughout the land.

Now comes one of the dailies, the Seattle Times, with a reflective piece including interviews with Gregoire herself as well as lots of insiders. If four more years of Shrub don't make me want to move to Canada, this surely does.

Much grand kerfuffle running back and forth between the hard-core establishment/DLC types (Kilgore, Beinart) on the one hand and genuine leftists like Sirota and more centrist reform Democrats like Kos on the other.

The establishment/DLC folks don't seem to get something that the reform folks do, and I want to expand on it a little. Here's the idea: What Democrats need to win is tactical retooling, not an ideological makeover.

Stop it. Just stop with the pointless post-election obsession over issue polling. When a pollster tries to determine why Bush won by asking voters what the most important issues were, and then lists things like the economy, moral values, the Iraq war, the pollster is incorrectly assuming that voters are making their decisions based on issues. In fact, many (most?) voters don't do that at all. They, especially the last-minute swing voters, choose the president based on nebulous factors like which candidate's personality appeals to them most, which gives them a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, which-no, really-they'd rather have a beer with.

Or as a NASCAR driver told one of the network morning shows the week before the election, "I like Bush because he has a firm handshake. He looks you in the eye and he lives on a farm. Kerry lives in a mansion in Massachusetts." All the issue polling in the world will not capture what's going on inside that man's head.

For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, I strongly suggest you brace yourself and read the NYT's ombudsman's ridiculous whitewash of his paper's shameless shilling for Bush.

Okrent claims he and his minions have done exhaustive research this entire year and have come up with a conclusion: the paper has no bias. None whatsoever, move right along, nothing to see here. You want facts to back up this conclusion? Evidence? Bah! I'm a man of such importance and self-evident balance, he seems to imply, that you should simply trust my judgment.

OK, this is on the order of Jon Stewart kicking the media's butt every night of the week. Remember that super-snarky Jodi Wilgoren article comparing the prices of everything John Kerry touched during his vacation, and then comparing the more humble, down-to-earth tastes of Dear Leader? Remember Wilgoren's horrifying front-page piece on Kerry's "valet"?

Well, VH-1 is running "Battle of the Bling," comparing Kerry's lifestyle to Bush's, to see which has more "bling." It's absolutely hilarious and far, far more realistic than the propaganda put out by Pravda-on-the-Hudson. They cover all the things we all know about Kerry, but they also go into Bush's riches and blue blood, his private club memberships, his $40K cowboy boots, all 25 of them . . . on and on.

It's part of their series "The Fabulous Life," and it's done in the same fawning, over-the-top neo-Robin Leach style that they use for the likes of P. Diddy and Madonnna. It's got a section on their Web site.

Hi, my name is Dan and I'm a recovering Times addict.

OK, I can report that it's been a few weeks since I gave up buying the Sunday Times. A lifelong habit done in by their incompetence and kowtowing to the Boy King. So at least  they no longer get any of my money. But it's too easy to peruse their Web site, and I almost always regret it. Just two examples of their foolishness this morning:

After doing decent (let's rate it a B-) work on the Swiftboat Liars earlier this week, Jim Rutenberg and Kate Zernike produce a droning thumbsucker on negative campaign ads. (News flash! They work, even though people say they don't like them!)

Needless to say, a photo of the Swift Boat ad is paired with an image from F9/11, as if the two were equivalent in factual accuracy. Needless to say again, the Swift Boat attacks are discussed without any mention of the lies contained within. The authors even throw in a general comment from ubiquitous bozo Kathleen Hall Jamieson about distortions: "Unless people think [an ad] is untruthful, you're not going to get a backlash out of it."

Why yes, Ms. Jamieson, but people won't think an ad is untruthful unless somebody (say, the media!) points out the untruths in the ad.

The original broadcast was a few days ago, but I thought I'd share an exchange I've had with Morning Edition reporter John McChesney about a report he did on campaign advertising. He aired some of the Swift Boat Liars' ad without pointing out that their charges were unsubstantiated, that they didn't serve with Kerry, and that their main guy had recanted the night before (later that day, he unrecanted, but whatever). My response was based on material I've gotten here at Kos and elsewhere in the blogosphere.

Anyway, in the extended box is the entire exchange so far. Yes, it's really, really long, so only obsessives need apply. I don't expect McChesney to respond further, but I think it's good for all of us kossacks to keep up the pressure.

Clarke is an American hero and he's doing some damage to the Bushies. But conservatives, despite their incompetence and obvious panic, are doing a phenomenal job of misdirection in focusing on Clarke's character. Or to be more accurate, focusing on just-so stories about Clarke's character.

I was shocked by two things yesterday, one in the media and a related conversation in my personal life. On one of the Sunday morning shows, they referred to a poll in which respondents were asked about Clarke's credibility. The wording was something like "Is Clarke motivated by profit or partisan interests?" I couldn't believe that the question was even asked and I really couldn't believe that fully 50 percent of Americans said yes. That's way beyond the core of conservative true believers.

So I'm watching Meet the Press, and Pumpkinhead is at it again, spending the entire time replaying Republican character attacks on Clarke. To his eternal credit, Clarke over and over again tries to turn the conversation back to substance, and Timmy refuses to go there. He's such a pig.

But the best thing is Richard A. Clarke. I'm reading his book. It rocks completely. And he handles himself so well. My new hero. Sigh.

So there was some discussion among the Kossack faithful yesterday about whether we are unduly pessimistic. I'd like to follow up with a thread today demonstrating why the Clarke revelations don't fill me with hope that the Bush administration will finally take a big hit. I write this at least half in jest, because seeing the glass as half-full or half-empty is mostly a matter of choice and events may prove my pessimism unwarranted. But still:

Another Bush scandal, another monstrous failure on the part of our media.

First, the NYT buried the story of Clarke's revelations with a baltantly biased Judith Miller hack job tucked away on the bottom of an inside page. Just now, the Times posted its afternoon report on the White House reaction. Yup, it's all he said/she said. No effort whatsoever to show that Clarke has a long paper trail and multiple corroborating witnesses to support his claims. No acknowledgment that the White House has no actual evidence to support its claims.

And over on CNN, the home page has two, count 'em two, articles about the poor, poor White House defending itself, one about Condi slamming Clark and another headlined "Bush defended". Cuz, you know, one article about the White House's propaganda campaign just wouldn't be enough!

After being one of those "I don't watch TV" self-righteous holdouts, I finally gave in to a Six Months of Free Cable! offer, and I'm addicted already to the damn thing. And what do I find? That after years of reading about how conservative the cable news channels are, I find it's much, much worse than even I had imagined. Today's example: the CNN/USA Today poll.

Wolf Blitzer introduces his interview with Bill Schneider by saying that the poll shows what a tough road ahead Kerry has. Huh? The poll shows Kerry ahead by 8 points, for God's sake! Well, Schneider says that's a "slight lead" and that it's "within the margin of error." Every tiny shred of pro-Bush news in the poll was trumpeted, as was the threat to Kerry from Nader.

It was un-freakin'-believable.

The contempt for Democrats and the cheerleading for Republicans is all out in the open. Wild.

Props to Michael Getler, the WaPo's ombudsman. For the second time recently he has tackled the issue of his paper's tendency to downplay stories about the Bush administration's exaggerations and lies regarding Iraq's WMDs. He's polite, his tone is moderate, but he's getting more and more pissed at the news editors for burying all of Walter Pincus' hard-hitting stories on intel exaggeration.

After pointing out that the Post, the Times, and the Journal all buried articles this week on how the administration exaggerated Iraq's threat, Getler writes:

"Editors cannot, of course, put every story on this subject on the front page. But the topic is a source of frustration for many readers, and for me, because there is no easy way to stay on top of this crucial story. Page one tells readers what news editors think is important, and the press is about the only way to find out more than what the government chooses to tell us."

This week's installment is headlined "Not Everyone Was Wrong," and as that implies, it's a response to David Kay's famous "We were all wrong" mea culpa. Getler highlights all the various US government agencies who got it right in saying Iraq was not a threat: from the Defense Intelligence Agency to the State Department to the Air Force.

I know what you're thinking: "But it's only February!" But still, I just heard something on my car radio that, all by itself, will surely put this particular whore in the running.

Cokie Roberts, on what used to be the lone liberal outpost in the broadcast world, NPR, spun mightily on Bush's TNR appearance. He was "effective." He answered all questions about the economy and Iraq WMD intelligence. His AWOL status doesn't matter because it's all in the past. When asked about the Democrats' response, Cokes knew not to address the substance of their criticisms. Instead, she turned the subject to the fact that the White House is "worried" because, gee, there are just so many of them launching their barrage of complaints so quickly. It's unfair! He's outgunned!

My freakin' God!

OK, I'll admit that Dean seemed absolutely nuts in the decontextualized, televised version of the screech-speech Monday night. And to be sure, it was imprudent to be unaware of how he would look and sound to the rest of the world.

But I just got done listening to an interview with David Frum, author of a new book, "An End to Evil," with Richard Perle. The man is completely insane, living in a fantasy world of his own construction, totally oblivious of all facts on the ground. And now I'm listening to Juan Williams' softball interview with Dick Cheney in which he is still insisting that al Qaeda and Saddam were connected. The man is nuts, completely nuts.

Yet both Frum and Cheney have a wonderful way of speaking: calm, assured, never ruffled. But can we just admit that these people are completely bonkers? And can Democrats make this a campaign issue? I mean, Republicans question the sanity of every single Dem frontrunner, and they never have any evidence to back up their smears. We have actual evidence of insanity! Come on, people!

So I'm reading Will Saletan's new Slate piece on why you shouldn't vote for Dean. It's actually quite reasonable and not your usual nasty snark attack on the good governor.

But one line caught my eye. In his discussion of Dean's "religion problem" (the author doesn't think it's much of a problem), Saletan writes that he thinks Dean "admires Jesus' teachings but doesn't really think Jesus was the son of God. . . . [But] I don't see how a reporter or Bush surrogate could press Dean to answer the 'son of God' question without appearing to suggest an American Inquisition."

OK, I don't expect the likes of "the Howards" (Kurtz and Fineman) or any of the other obvious media whores to be anything but corrupt. But whenever I see a byline from someone like EJ Dionne, I still get my hopes up. Only to have those hopes dashed over and over again.

Today's offering is typical. In general, Dionne seems to bash Democrats in general at least as much as he criticizes Republicans. And he's supposed to be on our side??!?

So I do my usual first-thing-in-the-morning news troll through the Net (after the cold cereal and the coffee, of course), and I find a mountain of negative articles on Dean. Just as they did with Gore, the media seems determined to exaggerate out of all proportion every tiny little mistake, every distant, pale intimation of a possible conflict of interest on the part of a low-level, long-dead aide, every ripped-out-of-context quotation.