Mary;
Thanks for recapping these articles for us!!!!

I'm so sick and tired of establishment Democrats and others saying its bad that Dean is getting the base and activists involved. This is the same demented logic that has lead to the Democrats have majorities in none of the branches of government. Just stupid and pathetic.

Kerry and Gephart are so much better candidates, they've done so much for us in the Senate and House. Give me a break.

JimJ

Mary, have you seen these yet?

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1002061,00.html

Elisabetta Burba, a journalist at the current affairs magazine Panorama, said she received the documents in ***October 2002*** but concluded they did not stand scrutiny and passed them to US diplomats in Rome.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2925610,00.html

ROME (AP) - A journalist for an Italian news magazine has come forward, saying it was she who turned over to U.S. diplomats some documents purportedly showing that Iraq wanted to buy uranium from Niger. The documents turned out to be forgeries.

Mary good work -- your summaries are much easier to read than the originals.

JimJ - yes, the clowns who lost the House in 1994 and how long has the Senate been gone (excluding the gift from Jeffords in 2001)? IMO what the Democratic leadership doesn't get is that people don't vote because the differences between the parties are not clear. How is the average person to distinguish between BushCo's request for international forces for Iraq from that of Biden and Daschle?

I got a surprise email from Jonathan Cohn (one of the TNR editors) the other day. He was doing background work on the article referenced above and had come across a post I had written complaining about the simpleminded comparisons of the Zogby and ARG polls in New Hampshire. I shared some links with him, and I'm glad to see that something--if only tangential--made it into the article: he points out that one poll has Dean outpolling Kerry with NH independents.

I also told him a little of what we had planned with Truth Corps, and he expressed interest in hearing more about it when we have something to show.

I'm still a bit in shock that all the hours I have spent posting diatribes may actually pay off!

Mary, here's more about the Italian job, lots of good leads:

http://www.takebackthemedia.com/com-hans-7-19.html

Thank you, Mary. These summaries are full and excellent. Most helpful. You did a lot of work very quickly for us.

Laura, thanks much for these articles. They are amazing! I have lots of questions that arise seeing them. I'll see if I can get them worked up into a post. (After I finish some of other chores today I can't put off and get ready for a long, full work week....)

Deminva -- that is really good. It's great you got contacted by Jonathan Cohn. I need to check out his article. It would be very nice if they picked up our truthsquad info. Can you provide a link to your posts as well?

Re: Dean and the activists. I do think we have to spend a lot of energy putting out an optimistic message. I think that Bush could self-destruct, but we need to get rid of the whole gang and being able to articulate a positive message that creates a sense of possibility and hope while counteracting the cynical use of fear and vengence that is the specialty of BushCo will be really essential. I'd like to see Dean expand his focus to expanding his focus and base to more include more union, minority, environmentalist groups since these are also key groups to get onboard. Part of that will be on building a message like Clinton did: "the bridge to the 21st century".

Those of us who support Dean tend to categorize political analysts into those that "get it" versus those that don't. Dean's rapidly growing support has already proven wrong most of those who don't get it. Anyone who continues to see Dean as the "anti-war candidate" just hasn't done their homework on Dean. If he were the anti'war candidate, his support would have dwindled after the war. Anybody who dismisses Dean's ability to energize his supporters doesn't get it. John Kerry gets it, however, and has been doing his best Dean imitation lately. If Dean and Kerry end up fighting for the same set of voters, as some analysts suggest, they are both going to lose. The winning candidate will be the one able to reach beyond their natural base and get broad support. Dean and his Meetup army are very cognizant of the need to gain support among minorities and union workers. Alot of outreach is being done by Dean himself and on a local level to expand his coalition.

Having Dean as the nominee is choosing to think outside the box, to go for revolution instead of evolution. His strategy is one of appealing to people on an emotional level, energizing voters, bringing in the young and the disaffected. If it works, we'll have a Democratic wave. If it doesn't, he'll lose, maybe decisively. The question is, after following the Party leadership the last 10 years, do we really still have anything to lose?