is it "a pox on both their houses"?  or does it mean that it's an opportunity for the first group to step up with a reform agenda?

We're in the middle of a civil war with the Drug/Crime war and a foreign war in Iraq. Both look at a class of people and deem them criminal and worthy of imprisonment or death. Of course there is a natural urge for people to look at "others" as dangerous and as threats. Republicans, often with Democratic complicity, have been stoking these feelings and directing them against those who defy them at home and abroad. In the case of Iraq, and the case of the Drug War, their solutions are repressive and violent.

We'd do well to see this for what it is and speak out against harsh, brutal, and deadly remedies to our problems. Judging by the polling data cited above America may be ready to hear that message.

The incredibly short-term memory of the American public, which has been fostered by corporate consumerism, has finally backfired. Americans have largely forgotten 9/11 as the forefront of issues, for better or worse, and it can no longer be tactfully used as a banner to convince them to support Bush's neocon agenda (unless some sort of relapse occurs).

Funny how that works.

I would like to see an opposition party make the criminal mismanagement of the economy a bigger issue in the minds of the people.  For the federal budget to go from a 200 billion dollar surplus in 2000 to record deficits now is unbelievable.  When the congress raised the debt ceiling I dont remember the Democrats reminding us that we have to raise the debt ceiling to afford tax cuts for the rich and the war in Iraq.

The irony of bush's declining approval is that the decline is due to the inevitable outcome of his insane policies, and not because the American people have to chose between two alternative plans.  The democratic party's tacit approval of bush's policies is almost as disguisting to me as the policies themselves.  

So perhaps it's simply not seen to be as much of a priority, because things aren't as bad as they were then.

The intensity of political interest among the roughly 10% of the population that reads political news in the papers (or online) is simply not matched by the remaining 35% of the population that makes up the voting electorate (and leaving out the roughly 55% who have given up entirely).

For the past 8 months, the Republican administration and Congress has done nothing but tank -- this is a huge development, utterly unexpected after the election.

There remain, however, another 15 months until the next elections, which means that if the Dems were to put forth a "clear alternative" at this piont, we would interrupt the dynamic of Republican decline, which appears to be accelerating rather than abating.

There is indeed a need for the Dems to present some clarity about what we would do in power, but that need is not until next fall, for two important reasons: a) we don't agree right now, and as much as most people feel the answers are clear -- withdraw from Iraq at hte top of the list -- we cannot win a majority with that as our message, nor for that matter, is withdrawl a foreign policy; it is a short-term tactic; and b) anything we lay out now as an alternative would provide Bush & Co the foil they need to do the only thing they know how to -- slash and burn an opponent.