Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi challenged the president over Iraq by sending him a letter, ahead of a White House meeting later on Wednesday.

The Democrats buried the Immigration bill because it was taking up the steam of the antiwar to continually pound over and over and over and over again what a failure the war on terror is.

Bush’s failure. He gave up trying to convince anyone of its right or wrongness. He simply let the antiwar/Democrats/left define the argument.

So Reid buries the most important legislation in a generation so he can get back to bashing the war/bush and anything republican.

Its no wonder conservatives are jumping off the burning ship. They forgot where the fire extinguishers are and how to use them.

But, you are also right that only administration critics on the left seem to get any attention in the media. This has been really harmful because it sets up these issues as partisan, instead of as important safeguards of our democracy, which all Americans need to be aware of.

My criticism of some conservatives who still support Bush remains, but we should give credit to those who have been speaking out all along, while getting little media coverage.

But why did it take 7 years to speak out? That’s ridiculously long to wait.

It would be a mistake to argue that the American Freedom Agenda has waited “7 years to speak out” given that several of its members have been speaking out against the Bush administration’s policies since Bush’s first term in office. Former Republican Congressman Bob Barr (who has subsequently left the Republican Party and joined the Libertarian Party) has been on cable news channels denouncing the Patriot Act and warrantless electronic surveillance since 2005, and Republican Congressman (and current presidential hopeful) Ron Paul has been criticizing the Bush Administration’s record on civil liberties from the beginning.

Just because the mainstream media refuses to acknowledge conservative critics of the Bush Administration doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. It seems to me that civil libertarians of all stripes (liberals, moderates, conservatives, and libertarians) should be working together rather than bickering over which group was the first to criticize Bush.

Yes, reaching out is always good.

There was a precedent set on this site for reaching out. It concerned progressives working to create a positve agenda. The precedent consisted of pointing out what has been wrong with progessives up to now. The reaching out did not happen wihout an exacted price of criticism.

Think of this as the first step, then. The reaching out will come later.

The only thing that has enabled him to do all this in the first place is unquestioning support from people like this.

I remember back close to 9/11, a student got himself in trouble with homeland security and almost no one would help him once they found out who was ‘after’ him. I did, but can’t say I did not wonder what might happen.

Also, there is a supper simple way to gauge their sincerity. Just ask them to back the candidate who fulfills their pledge the best, and explain why that candidate succeeds in their view. An honest attempt to answer that might lead them to back a Dem, and that would truely be a sign of honest reflection and ‘waking up’.