Now that Republicans have messed things up bad enough

The war machine wants to buy our party and do the same thing with us. We have to put aside the idea that we feel we know Hilary, or any of the party leaders. They are media representations, and not real people to us.

Being a Democrat is about being a Democrat in your home town, and in your neighborhood. This obsessive national focus is terrible for us, because we need leaders from the ground up. By holding our local leaders accountable, we can get practice at holding the national leaders accountable. I fear we have not done a good job at that in way too long.

Now if a national candidate is taking money from the war machine, that is something we should hold them accountable on. Just as it is our duty as citizens to question and protest Bush, it is our duty as Democrats to question and protest our own leaders when they do something that is wrong.

There can be no excuses, or "that's just what you have to do to get elected". Either we stand up for what is right, or we are not better than those we fight against.