…and of course right after I finally leap into the fray and say something about it, the Democrats roll over and cut a deal that gives the Republicans A) most of what they wanted, B) momentum, and C) ammunition to use against the Dems the next time the Repubs want to step over the line.

The Republicans were threatening to take the no-more-filibusters thing to a vote, and there’s a good chance they didn’t have the votes to win. There were actually Republicans who didn’t like the idea and who may well have voted against it. Clearer heads — and the Democrats — might have actually prevailed on this issue. So what did the Democrats do? They blinked. They agreed to a “compromise” that A) lets 3 of the 5 nominees they were filibustering go to a vote and B) basically ties their hands against filibustering future nominees.

Way to stand up, boys, way to stare them down.

As much as I despise the Republicans, I am even more embarrassed by the Democrats. And yet for someone like me who thinks we’re going to hell in a handbasket, they’re the only game in town because they’re the biggest of the not-GOP parties and thus have the best chance of prevailing. Sad, just sad.

Today’s Democratic party is a limp noodle, a clammy handshake, a soft boner. They’re the four-eyed outfielder afraid of the pop-fly ball, the dog that rolls over and pees on itself when confronted, the geek who gets wedgied and stuffed in his locker at Gym class. I could list analogies and metaphors about them for days and still not come close to explaining the contempt I feel for my party these days.

That’s why I like Howard Dean. He may be crazier than a shit-house rat but that motherfucker will stand up and say something. We need more politicians like him who are willing to stand up and call “Bullshit” and do what’s right. Playing not to offend clearly isn’t working, and in fact looking at what the Republicans are doing you could argue that offending people is what actually does work.

I’d give anything for a Democrat with a spine. And while I’m giving away the farm in exchange for vertebrae, I’d also give anything for a press that actually does their job. The Rethuglicans piss and moan about the “MSM” (MainStream Media, for those of you who aren’t sucking the Fox News MSM tit) and its supposed liberal bias, but in fact the press is as cowardly as the Dems have been about calling BushCo on their bullshit. If we had a press that was really telling the whole story instead of regurgitating White House news releases and talking points that they occasionally shade with obliquely critical adjectives, the Republicans would be frozen in their tracks at being caught with their hands in the cookie jar and the American people would be storming the White House with pitchforks and torches.

Up there at the top right of this page is my “About” section, where I have it set to cycle through a variety of descriptions. One of them is “Silent in Gehenna.” That’s the title of a short story by Harlan Ellison (one of my all-time favorite authors) about a revolutionary who ends up suspended in a cage with a bullhorn above a public street on an alien world, yelling at the aliens to “rise up, throw off the bonds of your oppressors” — and being ignored. He is the voice of their conscience and they don’t listen. That’s me in my political posts here: yelling the truth into a not-listening void.