With Alito's confirmation, we might as well kiss the Constitution goodbye

more confirmation, as if we needed it, that, as peter daou so articulately points out, the progressive netroots bloggers are voices crying in the wilderness as the united states enters perhaps the most critical and dangerous period in its history...

This, then, is the reality: progressive bloggers and online activists -- positioned on the front lines of a cold civil war -- face a thankless and daunting task: battle the Bush administration and its legions of online and offline apologists, battle the so-called “liberal” media and its tireless weaving of pro-GOP narratives, battle the ineffectual Democratic leadership, and battle the demoralization and frustration that comes with a long, steep uphill struggle.

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The hellish reality progressive bloggers have acknowledged and internalized is still alien to the party establishment. Dem strategy is still two parts hackneyed sloganeering and one part befuddlement over the stifling of their message.

Maybe the Democratic establishment wants it so, maybe they don't know better, but progressive bloggers and activists are starting to see the bitter reality of their isolation...

i was bemoaning this sad fact only yesterday...

every day i wait, thinking TODAY will be THE DAY... TODAY, people will look around them, read the news and say, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH... but it ain't happening... every day, things get worse and worse, and every day, nothing happens...

do you suppose hope is the thing we all have to lose before things turn a corner...?

[T]he Democrats were incapable of making an issue out of Alito’s embrace of the “unitary executive,” a concept so radical that it effectively eliminates the checks and balances that the Founding Fathers devised to protect against an out-of-control President.

Bush even gave the Democrats a news hook to make the peculiar phrase “unitary executive” a household word. Bush cited his “unitary” powers just days earlier in signaling that he would use his commander-in-chief authority to override the provisions of Sen. John McCain’s anti-torture amendment passed in December 2005.

Though the McCain amendment had been big news – and Bush’s announcement of his personal loophole on torture had been reported in the press – the Democrats still failed to force this troubling concept of an all-powerful President into the mainstream debate.

“Unitary executive” may have been the buzz of the blogs, but it was barely mentioned on the evening news. The notion that Bush and Alito believe the President has the power to abrogate the Bill of Rights, authorize torture and seize control of independent regulatory agencies got much less attention than a few tears shed by Alito’s wife.

meanwhile, alito's nomination appears poised to sail through... i suggest we all download and print copies of the u.s. constitution... it might be nice to have one handy for a keepsake if nothing else...

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