The problem with letting history judge is that so many officials get away with murder in the meantime -- while precious few choose to face protracted vilification for pursuing truth and peace.

     A grand total of two people in the entire Congress were able to resist a blood-drenched blank check for the Vietnam War. Standing alone on Aug. 7, 1964, senators Ernest Gruening and Wayne Morse voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

     Forty-three years later, we don’t need to go back decades to find a lopsided instance of a lone voice on Capitol Hill standing against war hysteria and the expediency of violent fear. Days after 9/11, at the launch of the so-called “war on terrorism,” just one lawmaker -- out of 535 -- cast a vote against the gathering madness.

     “However difficult this vote may be, some of us must urge the use of restraint,” she said on the floor of the House of Representatives. The date was Sept. 14, 2001.

In a report on a recent discussion between Senator Chris Dodd, Democratic candidate for president, and a group of bloggers, we learn that:

1. Even though 54% of Americans favor impeaching Cheney, and 40% oppose, Dodd opposes impeachment because, he says, he bases his actions on what the average American thinks, and

2. Even though any useful bill Congress might pass will be vetoed, Dodd is going to continue to oppose impeachment on the grounds that Congress needs to focus on other things, not because Dodd believes this makes any sense, but because Dodd believes the average American buys this line.

And we can infer that:

3. Dodd believes that after another year and a half of every useful bill being vetoed, every useful subpoena being rejected, every useful witness suffering miraculous memory loss, every contempt citation being blocked, and every sentence being commuted, the public will still believe that Congress should avoid impeachment in order to accomplish other things.

In the short yet painful period of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s prominence, he accused people who disagreed with his views of being Communists and many were ostracized in society. People became afraid to challenge him, fearing for their reputations and livelihoods.

McCarthy’s relentlessly overreaching tactics included investigating various governmental agencies, universities, and even the United Nations. He routinely coerced individuals and institutions to   march to his orders or else suffer the consequences.

When the Secretary of the U.S. Army refused to intercede on his behalf for a favor, McCarthy ordered the investigation of that branch of the military.    -On June 9, 1954, at a Senate hearing during that investigation,  , Joseph Welch, Special Counsel for the Army, stood up to the fear-mongering, turning the tide of history.

Needless to say, the Bush year’s have been difficult years for progressives. Reality’s "well know liberal bias" hasn’t been enough to keep pace with Team-W’s lies, misrepresentations, and manipulations. And we haven’t resorted to torture, or to tapping phone lines (Talking Head’s prescient "Life During Wartime" plays through my head as I type that phrase: "We’re tapping phone lines/ You know that that ain’t allowed.") We’ve had to deal with Bush’s imperial reach.

Fortunately (sort of) and not surprisingly, Bush’s imperial reach has developed into imperial over-reach to the extent that all but the most "blinded by the right" Bushies are coming to see the arrogance, deceitfulness, wrongheadedness, and just plain wrongness that characterize Bush governing. But that hardly means our difficult times are over—or that our difficult times will end on their own. And, at the rate Bush is screwing things up, we can’t allow ourselves to wait until the calendar says the bum’s got to leave the White House.

Debra Bowen Announces DRE (Touch-Screen) Machines to be Used Only One Per Polling Place for Disabled Voters with 100% Manual Count of Paper Trails
Dramatic Late Night Press Conference Held at 11:45pm in Sacramento...

In a dramatic late-night press conference, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertified, and then recertified with conditions, all but one voting system used in the state. Her decisions, following her unprecedented, independent "Top-to-Bottom Review" of all certified electronic voting systems, came just under the wire to meet state requirements for changes in voting system certification.

Bowen announced that she will be disallowing the use of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems made by the Diebold and Sequoia companies on Election Day, but for one DRE machine per polling place which may be used for disabled voters. The paper trails from votes cast on DREs manufactured by those two companies must be 100% manually counted after Election Day. DREs made by Hart-Intercivic are used in only one California county and will be allowed for use pending security upgrades.