your choice tonight: black or white. sorry, gray is not on the menu

first, the good news: media horse on line is back from its vacation on the ranch in crawford, texas (oops! sorry! the horse is on vacation so much we get it mixed up with someone else!)

now, the bad news: democratic underground, another fine publication that we highly recommend, has begun a new policy on their message boards:

"for the next three weeks: it is forbidden to use the du message board in an effort to make our members withhold their precious votes from the democratic party, which is the only organization capable of stopping the republican onslaught. it is forbidden to use the du message board to organize protests or other actions against members of the democratic party."

we are sorry to hear about this, only because, it doesn't seem all that...well, democratic.

granted, flamers, trollers and freepers are as annoying as all get out (and if you don't like it, you can all get out!) and sure, democratic underground has never claimed to be anything other than highly partisan in favor of the democratic party, and that's ok with us. but with this new policy, we ask if they might want to change the name of their blog from "democratic underground" to "democratic party underground." truth in advertising and all, you know.

there is a difference between partisan and fascist. not letting somebody else say something that you don't agree with just doesn't seem very fair to us. especially if somebody wants to discuss the options of third parties in america (a verboten subject now on the du message boards). which actually brings us to the main point we are trying, albeit in a clumsy fashion, to make.

the democratic underground states the reason for its new policy is that the democratic party is "only organization capable of stopping the republican onslaught." we wonder aloud, which democrats are they talking about?

john breax, max clelland, zell miller, max baucus and ben nelson? how about tim johnson and jean carnahan? these folks all voted for mr. bush's trillion dollar tax cut. are those the democrats that will "stop" the republican onslaught?

how about hillary clinton, henry waxman, tom daschle, dick gephardt, joe lieberman, john kerry, john edwards, howard berman, jane harman, adam schiff, brad sherman, dianne feinstein, to name but a few of the 29 senators and 82 representatives
who voted for mr. bush's war resolution to attack iraq? this is the way to "stop" the republican onslaught?

our point is, if the democrats had shown one-tenth of the spine of jim jeffords in the past year and 3/4, we wouldn't be so botherd by the du's new message board policy. if it looked like the democrats actually even wanted to stop the republican onslaught, we wouldn't make such a fuss. but as it is, the democratic party, and by extension, the cheerleading the democratic underground, is not looking so much like the republicans' enemy, but rather their enabler.