Dave Lindorff

Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has been "disappeared." Not in the sense of victims of America's so-called War on Terror. He hasn't been carted off in an orange jumpsuit to some black site in Kazakhstan. But he has been "disappeared" by the reporters and editors of The New York Times.

The Democratic Party is not a bunch of wafflers. They are a bunch of WFILers. Let me explain.

If you assume the Democratic Party leadership is not a bunch of idiots, then the only alternative theory has to be that they think that we are.

The do-nothing, Democrat-led Congress, fresh from handing President Bush the power to spy on Americans without any judicial oversight, and just weeks after providing full funding for the continuation of the bloody war and occupation in Iraq, is now mounting an all-out campaign to co-opt and bury the growing grassroots campaign to impeach President Bush and Cheney.

What was Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) thinking when he told Senate colleagues it was a "sad day" when that body started taking its marching orders from an outsider (the president and the director of national security), in passing a new version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that gives the president a free hand to spy on communications of Americans without a judicial review?

Is he implying that this is the first time the Senate has done this?

For the past year, as the impeachable crimes of President Bush and Vice President Cheney have mounted, Democratic members of Congress have scrambled to present a whole array of explanations for why they can't support impeachment.

The looming collapse of the U.S. military in Iraq, of which a number of generals and former generals, including former Chief of Staff Colin Powell, have warned, is happening none too soon, as it may be the best hope for preventing military rule here at home.

If Rosa Parks had lived two years longer, what happened today in the halls of Congress might have killed her. It certainly would have broken her heart.

If it weren't so depressing, it would be entertaining to watch the loathed, ridiculed, and remarkably unpopular Bush administration continue to run circles around the supposedly ascendant Democrats in Congress.

If you know anybody who still supports Bush's and Cheney's criminal war against Iraq, have them watch a short news report aired on July 16 on ABC News titled Exclusive Look at Soldiers on the Front Line. (Note: You will have to go to the page and click on the headline) It will sicken you and anyone who watches it.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Dave Lindorff

In a diary entry on DailyKos, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), one of the most consistently progressive liberals in the Senate, surrendered to the Democratic Party Establishment with an embarrassing string of lame and tired excuses for not standing for impeachment of the Bush/Cheney regime.