Fittingly, this diary begins with a fairy tale.

Once upon a time, a strapping young knight named Bill Clinton donned his suit of shining armor and saved the Democratic Party by slaying the two-left-winged dragon of McGovernism. In return, the grateful Barons of the Beltway elevated him and his consort, Lady Hillary, to the status of royalty and awarded them the Democratic Party as their personal fiefdom. They renamed it Clintonshire.

The rest of the story is beneath the fold...

Those of you who've read my work here know that I love sports analogies. And that I've been unsparing in my criticism of D.C. Democrats. With good reason: after George W. Bush took office, they went into a fetal position and hid under their desks, and have yet to emerge and challenge this administration.

The behavior of D.C. Democrats has become so maddening (no, I'm not referring to blowhard football announcer John Madden) that the only way to keep sane is to laugh at them

So to celebrate a new football season, I'd like to offer the following "what if" question: what if the D.C. Democrats were a pro football franchise? Follow me across the 50-yard line...

Karl Rove's announcement that he will resign from the White House month's end reminded me of four years ago when I brought a copy of James C. Moore and Wayne Slater's Rove biography, "Bush's Brain," to our subdivision swimming pool (after all, one can never be too wonky). The book made it clear that the secret to Karl Rove's success was his chutzpah and ruthlessness--he's Lee Atwater 2.0, new and improved--rather than superior brainpower.

"Bush's Brain" so impressed me that I reviewed it on my personal website in August 2003. It's still very much a worthwhile read and for that reason, I'd like to share my review with the dKos community. As it turned out, I was somewhat pessimistic about the Democrats' chances in the 2004 election. But at the time, Bush was still riding a wave of post-Iraq war support, and you-know-who was the head of the Democratic National Committee, so it was hard to have a warm and fuzzy feeling about politics.

Below the fold, my review...

An awful lot of righteous wrath has been directed at America's media, and deservedly so. They've utterly failed to fulfill their traditional role--namely, acting as a check on the arrogant, the crooked, and the dangerous in public life.

Rather than get mad, I've decided to get even. Imagining myself the Absolute Ruler of the Universe, Human Resources Division, I've decided to reassign some of the most obnoxious people what passes for our news media, and give them more--shall we say--fitting jobs.

Below the fold...Dumpster's Demotions!

As a public service, I'd like to offer Capitol Hill Democrats, Beltway consultants, and timorous Democratic operatives a laundry list--50 in all--of reasons why we shouldn't even think of holding George W. Bush and Dick Cheney accountable for their shock-and-awe campaign against checks and balances, the separation of powers, and the rule of law.

Feel free to borrow them, girls and boys!

Drum roll, please...

This diary falls into the category of "Things I Found Out While Looking For Something Else Entirely." While researching an upcoming book about legalized gambling, I ran across Thomas Jefferson's "Thoughts on Lotteries". Those thoughts included Jefferson's reflections on a dark period of American history that bears a strong resemblance to the present. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After the September 11 attacks, Ed Koch, Dennis Miller, and millions of other Americans put their brains in cold storage and never came back to claim them. However, millions of others have come to their senses (or didn't lose their minds in the first place), and have tried to put the attacks in perspective--something that the Bush administration steadfastly refuses to do.

One of these individuals is John Mueller, a professor at Ohio State University. The title of his book about our reaction to terrorism, "Overblown," says it all. Below the fold is my review of his book...

Like millions of other Americans, I enjoy the annual ritual of March Madness. I've even been to three Final Fours--oddly, Michigan lost in the championship game each time--and seen quite a few early-round games as well. However, there's a dark side to the tournament, and to big-time college sports as well.

The bottom line is that the players are getting a raw deal. Even though they hold what amount to full-time jobs during the season, and which carry a greater than average risk of work-related injuries, they've been relegated to a legal never-never land called "student-athlete" status.

There's more beyond the 3-point line...

Cross-posted to TortDeform.com last Thursday

A couple of years ago, while researching a book about tort reform, I discovered Stephanie Mencimer's reporting about the courts. Mencimer, an investigative journalist, has written extensively about how the scales of civil justice have been tipped in favor of corporations.

Her recently-published book, Blocking the Courthouse Door, explains how business interests and the Republican Party joined forces to make it tougher for the average citizen to get into court, let alone win. Mencimer gives Republican spinmeisters a great deal of credit for this phenomenon. Using phrases such as "tort reform," as well as "lawsuit abuse" and "junk science," they've had great success molding public opinion.

The Iowa caucuses are more than 10 months away, and the presidential race is already giving me heartburn. There are several reasons why. Media coverage is barely better than "Entertainment Tonight," focusing on image, personality, and the horse-race aspect of the campaign. An obscene amount of money has been raised, making this election cycle look like the scene at the end of "Fall of the Roman Empire" when the emperorship was auctioned off. And I'm also not impressed with the current field of candidates, which is dominated by damaged-goods senators and ex-senators. (Why they're damaged goods will be the subject of a future diary.)

A frequently asked question on Daily Kos is "what is the Democratic Leadership Council, and what does it stand for?" One way to find out is to read The Plan: Big Ideas for America, by Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Reed. Emanuel, the House Democratic caucus chair, was a senior adviser to President Clinton; and Reed is the DLC's president. So The Plan is essentially the DLC playbook.

Last month, Terry McAuliffe had the kind of sendoff the rest of us scribblers can only dream of: a party at a fancy New York City hotel with Champagne flowing, media celebrities in attendance, and a glowing review by none other than Bill Clinton.

But this was no ordinary book launch, and McAuliffe is no ordinary author. His book, What a Party!, was part of a carefully orchestrated kickoff for Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign. A campaign that McAuliffe happens to be running.

I was hardly surprised by today's lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal, "The Democratic Field : It's Hillary Versus Everybody Else." It's further evidence that Hillary Rodham Clinton is the candidate the Right wants the Democratic Party to nominate.

There are two reasons why, and they're inconsistent with one another. The first reason is that she's the only figure in either party who can unite the Republicans, who are about to wage the kind of intra-party civil war that sank them in 1964 and 1976. With Senator Clinton at the head of the ticket, the neocons, the theocons, the "starve the beast" ideologues, and the libertarians will find common ground one last time to keep her out of the White House.

The second reason, which the Journal article hints at, is explained below.

The advertising blitz started even before Tiger Opening Day. Republican candidate for governor Dick DeVos has been spending tens of millions of dollars to wage one of the cheekiest stealth campaigns in American political history. In those ads, DeVos has been holding himself out as a businessman who can turn Michigan's economy around. He's even attempted to portray himself as someone who's above politics--never mind that he and his wife, Betsy, were the biggest individual contributors to the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000. His TV ads don't even mention that he's a Republican, and his party affiliation is nowhere to be seen on the front page of the "DeVos for Governor" website.

Then there's the real Dick DeVos, the Son of Amway, the George W. Bush of the Great Lakes. The Michigan Democratic Party would like state voters to know him better. Its 21-page pdf document, "The Michigan Pyramid Scheme: Dick DeVos' Real Plan for Michigan," succinctly and effectively explains why DeVos is a dangerous and extremist candidate.

Like many other Kossacks, I'm furious over ABC's decision to air the so-called documentary, "The Path to 9/11."

But what you expect from a network whose parent, Walt Disney Corporation, foisted on us the appalling Britney Spears, who later became a pint-sized shill for George W. Bush and his war. Who can forget the gum-smacking Britney's reply to Tucker Carlson?

Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens.

Fall arrived here in Michigan, at exactly 7:38 pm last Sunday. Just like that, the temperature dropped and the sky turned sullen. I guess Mother Nature is a football fan and she just wanted to set the scene for a new season.

I've been a football fan for many years but, unlike the average American who lives and dies with the local pro team, I'm a fan of the college game. One reason is the local teams I had to endure. As a kid living in New Jersey, I was traumatized by the God-awful New York Giants of the Allie Sherman era. And, as an adult living in southeast Michigan, I've been subjected to the endless soap opera called the Detroit "Lions."

Another reason is that the colleges I attended had damn good football programs. I spent four years at Notre Dame during the "Era of Ara", then moved on to Michigan at a time when the Bo-versus-Woody rivalry was at its most intense.

There's more below the 50-yard line...

I spent most of the weekend in Detroit at the Michigan Democratic State Convention and the rest of it catching up on lost sleep.

In a nutshell, parties hold conventions in August because our state constitution requires them to nominate candidates for the following 13 offices:

Three statewide offices: Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State; and

Two seats for each of the Supreme Court of Michigan, the University of Michigan Board of Regents, the Michigan State University Board of Trustees, the Wayne State University Board of Governors, and the State Board of Education.

I have no idea why the 1963 Constitutional Convention came up with this Rube Goldberg contraption, but that's what we have to work with.

For most Michigan Democrats, today was district and county convention day. The new party rules are weird--only precinct delegates elected earlier this month could vote today, but any paid-up party member can vote in next weekend's state convention--but it still was an interesting day.

Below the fold, my report on the 11th District Convention (western Wayne and western Oakland County)

If you went to convention, let us know what happened. Yes, we say "to convention". It's Canadian English that's leaked across the border, along with Tim Horton's and Hockey Night in Canada.