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"Why is it that liberals are so afraid to take their own side in an argument?" asks Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation and one of the world's hardest leftists. Her question was directed at Sen. John Kerry because he has been parsing his positions to mask the truth that he is the most liberal U.S. senator. "But why allow the L-word to be defined — and turned into a negative — by thugs at the Republican National Committee?" she continued in her piece posted on the magazine's Web site. "Isn't it time, after more than 20 years of...

If you haven't been following the take-no-prisoners approach of the Congressional Republican leadership--ramming through Medicare legislation by threatening reluctant GOP colleagues, barring Democrats from conference committees, keeping roll call open for almost three hours (breaking with the usual fifteen minutes)--Senator Chuck Hagel's (R, Neb) recent remarks convey some sense of the damage being done to our parliamentary system by the rightwing thugs currently running Congress. "It's almost anything goes," said Senator Hagel, far from a liberal voice, in criticizing his own party's leadership. "I think we're on the edge of something dangerous if we don't turn it around...It's like the...

More inside the Beltway spinning at work: Libya's coming clean on WMD is solely the product of Bush's war in Iraq. That's what the Bush Administration wants us to believe. And the Beltway paper of record seems awfully accepting of the Administration's spin. In Sunday's Post, Dana Milbank writes, "It has been a week of sweet vindication for those who promulgated what they call the Bush Doctrine." Richard Perle scurried to tell Milbank, "It's always been at the heart of the Bush doctrine that a more robust policy would permit us to elicit greater cooperation from adversaries than we'd had...

SHOW: THE O'REILLY FACTOR (20:00) December 1, 2003 Monday Transcript # 120101cb.256 SECTION: News; Domestic LENGTH: 2381 words HEADLINE: Talking Points Memo and Top Story GUESTS: Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Tammy Bruce BYLINE: Bill O'Reilly BODY: BILL O'REILLY, HOST: THE O'REILLY FACTOR is on. Tonight, Hollywood gearing up to unseat President Bush. We'll tell you about a strategy meeting to be held tomorrow out there. Mr. Bush was criticized by some for visiting the troops in Iraq. We'll find out what's behind that. Is racism in play in the Michael Jackson case? We'll talk to a guy who says yes. And...

Will he or won't he? Will retired four-star General, ardent critic of Bush's national security policies, telegenic TV commentator, and recently declared Democrat Wesley Clark enter the crowded presidential race? As a former military officer, Democrats believe Clark could make the party more viable on foreign affairs than it's been since a general named George Marshall was containing Communism under the command of a president named Harry Truman. (That's the conventional wisdom, though the staggering cost of the badly bungled Iraqi occupation has diminished the Republican advantage on defense no matter who runs against Bush.) While media commentary on...