My wife was stuck in the Civic Center Parking Lot Gridlock today in San Francisco. What's she has told me about the experience has shocked and appalled me and is causing me to revaluate a lot deeply held beliefs about politics and governance.

In trying not get bogged down in despair about Black Thursday, I've been contemplating how future Democratic presidents and congressional leaders should work to make sure next Republican president can not do the amount of damage to the country Bush has done. As the Bushies plot to attack or destabilize Iraq, Venezuela, and Cuba, I've realized that Congressional Democrats in the 1980's made a huge mistake in not more strongly opposing Reagan's illegal and immoral actions in to support tyrannical regimes in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

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I could not believe it when I turned on CNN this morning to see Bush giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to three people (Bremer, Frank & Tenet) who are very culpable for the mess in Iraq. Even more disappointing was the Democratic response for rewarding failure, almost nothing.

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Last night David Jones of Americans for Jobs, Healthcare and Progressive Values was on a C-SPAN program called "527s in 2004: Did They Make A Difference?" C-SPAN is often quite dull but Mr Jones description of how he, 20 big money donors, and his 527 torpedoed Dean was stunning. You can watch for yourself at (use Real Player, David Jones starts right before the 3 hour mark):

rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/c04/c04120604_report.rm