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Blogs Attack From Left as Democrats Reach for Center By Jim VandeHei Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 28, 2006; A06 Democrats are getting an early glimpse of an intraparty rift that could complicate efforts to win back the White House: fiery liberals raising their voices on Web sites and in interest groups vs. elected officials trying to appeal to a much broader audience. These activists -- spearheaded by battle-ready bloggers and making their influence felt through relentless e-mail campaigns -- have denounced what they regard as a flaccid Democratic response to the Supreme Court fight, President Bush's upcoming State...

Next Tuesday, President Bush is scheduled to deliver his annual State of the Union message to the nation. Not surprisingly, Democrats are already reveling in their plans for a rebuttal, in which they will no doubt repeat the pattern of past years and simply contradict everything the president says. Word is out that they intend to field Virginia's newly elected Governor, Timothy Kaine, for this task. Among Democrats, Kaine is considered to be a "rising star" (they seem to have many) with possible presidential potential. Sadly for liberal Democrats in the media and on Capitol Hill, their best talking points...

WASHINGTON -- Congressional Democrats announced today that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will deliver the party's Spanish-language response to next week's State of the Union address Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine will deliver the Democratic response in English from the governor's mansion in Richmond, Va., while Villaraigosa will do so in Spanish from his office in Los Angeles City Hall, said Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. The annual presidential address, before a joint session of Congress and a national audience, gives the chief executive the opportunity to lay out his agenda...

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will give the Spanish-language response to President Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday, Democratic congressional leaders announced. Villaraigosa has been seen as a rising Democratic star since his election in May as the first Hispanic in 133 years to lead Los Angeles, the country's second-largest city. He will deliver his remarks from his Los Angeles office, said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "Mayor Villaraigosa is working hard to increase economic opportunity and provide affordable and quality education for the people of Los Angeles," Reid and...

National Democratic leaders today will ask Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D) to deliver the party’s response to the president’s State of the Union address, believing that the new governor can best deliver their 2006 message of inclusiveness, American values and high ethical standards. Sources said that Senate and House Minority Leaders Harry Reid (Nev.) and Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who chairs the Democratic Governors’ Association, plan to call Kaine today to offer him the assignment. Kaine was sworn in as Virginia’s governor last weekend, succeeding fellow Democrat Mark Warner, under whom he served as lieutenant...

Today's question for us political junkies is the early speculation on whom the Dems will select to deliver the response to President's Bush's State of the Union address? By the time the speech rolls around, we will have completed a successful election in Iraq, ( and indeed, the new Itraqi PM may well be in attendance at the Capitol ) two new Supreme Court justices will be confirmed, ( and will Roberts decide to attend, another tweak at the Dems, perhaps?) So, who's gonna be the sacrificial lamb this time out?

President Clinton took his offensive to shift attention from the scandal that grips his presidency to the heartland today with a pair of campaign-style appearances promoting his State of the Union agenda of reforming Social Security and improving schools. Clinton said he hoped the American people would join him in his effort to assure "elemental retirement security" for current and future generations. "I want us to think about intergenerational responsibilities," he said here during an afternoon rally. "I saw a survey the other day that people in their twenties think it's more likely they'll see UFOs than that they'll ever...

Sen. Harry Reid (and Rep. Nancy Pelosi) gave the Democrat response to President Bush's State of the Union Address this week. After a stunning Bush victory last Nov. 2nd, and a stunningly high turnout of voters in Iraq just last Sunday, Reid doggedly insisted: "what we saw and heard tonight was a little like that movie, "Groundhog Day." The same old ideology that we've heard before — over and over again." click here for really large version This is an email-able, copyright-ready graphic you can use in emails, on blogs, in flyers, on posters... anything that's noncommercial.

President George W. Bush addressed the nation Wednesday, devoting much of his State of the Union comments to progress on the Iraqi warfront with Jihadistan and, on the domestic front, to Social Security reform. The President's remarks on those and other topics were forceful and, as has become the custom, were followed by an amusing rebuttal from the Left. Not to be outdone, this column will herewith continue its own custom of rebutting the rebutters -- sort of like shooting fish in a barrel. Visibly shaken by the President's performance, the tag-team of Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. San Fran...

It was the phone call from political purgatory. After Wednesday night's State of the Union address, dozens of reporters got on a conference call to hear Sen. Hillary Clinton's thoughts on President Bush's pitch to privatize Social Security. But instead they mostly heard a replay of Nevada Sen. Harry Reid and California Rep. Nancy Pelosi's Democratic response to Bush's address. It turns out someone put the phone on hold, leaving everyone else - including the New York senator - listening to Reid's statement, reports the Daily News' Ken Bazinet. "I love Harry Reid, but can somebody turn that off?" Clinton...

CONGRESSIONAL Democrats played right into President Bush's hands Wednesday night when they hissed at his assertion that Social Security was "headed toward bankruptcy" without reforms. Obstructionism is not a vision. Denial is not leadership. You can't fight disingenuousness with disingenuousness.

Bartleby Democrats Friday, February 4, 2005; Page A16 HERMAN MELVILLE'S "Bartleby, the Scrivener" tells the tale of a lawyer's assistant who inexplicably stops doing his job, instead spending his days staring blankly at a brick wall. "I'd prefer not to," he invariably tells his employer when asked to copy a paper, go to the post office or even answer a question. "No: at present I would prefer not to make any change at all," Bartleby says when asked to leave. In their response to President Bush's State of the Union address Wednesday night -- indeed, in much of their reaction...

The Democratic response to President Bush's State of the Union address gave most Americans their first good look at new Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. They had to come away unimpressed by his diatribe and annoyed by his shamelessness. Sen. Reid pitched the same tired, government-centered, anti-business, anti-taxpayer, entitlement-laden Democratic platform that voters rejected anew in November. He spoke in code to Democratic special interests. He even invoked God to try to trick Americans into believing the party of secularists had found religion on religion. But it was his demagoguery of Social Security reform that stood out: "(I)t's...

I’ve never before used a long quote from anyone who has, in Dave Barry’s words, the IQ of a kumquat. But there are exceptions to every rule. The following appeared on an exceptionally paranoid website known as the Democratic Underground. See for yourselves that this quote is typical of DU. "The Iraq vote is making me sick this morning "All the media keeps talking about is how happy the Iraqis are, how high turnout was, and how ‘freedom’ has spread to Iraq. I had to turn off CNN because they kept focusing on the so-called ‘voters’ and barely mentioned the...

The insane rage of the DUmmies sparked by last night’s State of the Union Address by President Bush will take your breath away as you can see in this DUmmie THREAD titled, “My take on the crying mother of the Marine.” Little of the DUmmie ranting is actually about the mother of the marine since most of it is nothing but blind insane animalistic FURY directed at Bush. We lead off with the absolutely loco raging of DUmmie Husb2Sparkly followed by other hateful DUmmie commentary in Bolshevik Red. The commentary of your humble correspondent, gasping for breath at the...

I watched the State of the Union address. I've been around long enough to know whether there is momentum or not. President Bush's most important proposal in the next four years, privatizing Social Security will pass congress. I wasn't sure about it. A lot of Democratic and liberal groups were making a good case. I thought they might succeed in frightening enough Republican politicians, who might run for reelection, to derail the proposal. I thought they would be able to convince most Americans that Social Security wasn't a problem. When I saw the Iraqi lady hug Mrs. Norwood, the mother...

Oh, sure, David Corn -- odious, carping leftist that he is -- engages in desultory sniping, but there isn't much he can say but that Bush's SOTU speech was a huge success, and the Democrat response painful. I'm only posting a few short quotes to give the flavor. If you don't want to give The Nation the pings, you can read Corn's review ("Capital Games") at CBS here. Or don't give CBS the pings either and trust me that I'm giving you pretty much all of the (relatively) non-dreary and/or schadenfreud worthy quotes. Oh, yeah, there is one funny bit...

"The inked fingers was disgusting," Air America radio talk show host Janeane Garofalo declared on MSNBC in denouncing Republican lawmakers who, before and after the State of the Union, showed off an inked finger meant to demonstrate solidarity with Iraqi voters who dipped a finger in ink when they voted. To mock the display, Garofalo soon held up her hand in a Nazi salute as she predicted: "The inked fingers and the position of them, which is gonna be a Daily Show photo already, of them signaling in this manner [Nazi salute], as if they have solidarity with the Iraqis...

Due to the "somber mood of the nation," Democrats in Congress have called on their Republican colleagues to refrain from all celebratory applause during President George Bush's state of the union speech Wednesday night. The annual presidential address before a joint session of Congress is traditionally interrupted dozens of times by applause from both parties and frequent cheers and standing ovations from the party in power. "How can anyone applaud in a time like this?" said Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, before launching into a list of reasons why Americans are in mourning. -- "Iraq is a quagmire of Sunni disenfranchisement,...