With enforcement, with protecting the borders, and drying up the illegals’ job market by any means necessary. Most would then leave on their own.

But in general, I think the far left is more treacherous and potentially much more harmful than the far right is.

Behind the mask, James Dobson wants to tell you how to pray, and wants to tell the Republicans who to nominate for prez.

Behind the mask, the big oil producers (hey, they made the $36 billion profit in one quarter – that’s not made up by Michael Moore) want you to end workers protections (OSHA is a bureaucracy, Unions are bad) and let big business call the shots on how much energy you get and for how much (Enron manipulated electricity to sing Dem Gov Gray Davis in Calif, in order to get Ahhnold elected).

OK, Wahoo, tell me the Far Right doesn’t run the national Republican Party. Yeah, right.

BTW, about Lieberman- He did happen to lose the Democratic primary that year, mostly because he’s become a big-time cheerleader for the war and George Bush. Now he’s McCain’s best bud. Say what you want about Joey, but you shouldn’t expect those people in your own party to welcome you with open arms when you endorse guys from the other party.

Truman, Kennedy, etc. wouldn’t know it. The Democratic Party is controlled by the far Left now. The crowd that wanted to defeat their own veteran Democrat Joe Lieberman because he wasn’t far enough out in left field for them.

Ziggie wants everyone to believe him rather than believe their own lyin’ eyes. But his view of America is courtesy of blogs like Move On and other left-wing ranters.

Conservatives will not miss bashing Clinton – they will simply bash Obama. Had Edwards won, they would have bashed Edwards, If, by stroke of circumstance, Dodd, Biden, Richardson, Kucinich or Gravel had won, they’d have bashed them.

They bashed Gore and Kerry, and the also-rans, Dean and Gephardt and the rest. They swift-boated Dukakis in the Boston Harbor and with Willie Horton; they swift-boated Mondale at the tax-raising gulch; and we could go on and on.

And they LOVED doing it. Lee Atwater to Karl Rove to Tom DeLay, they feast on this kind of politics. Obama can’t stop that with a kumbaya moment.

Conservatives have launched a cultural war, rejecting everything about America since the 1960s, and they intend to win. They intend to own the Supreme Court, and with Rupert Murdoch, the media. They intend to win in 2008 and 2012, and 2016, and they give no quarter.

The only question is: do the Democrats have the guts for this fight? Are we willing to engage each issue, on every battlefront, and be UNWILLING to let conservatives demean the things we believe in, and know are important and true.

Conservatives are on the blog and they’re on talk radio in full force. They take every opportunity to dump on elected officials with invective and insult, to turn people away from govt as anything other then an object of scorn. Sure – you can trust their corporate masters, once govt is totally reviled. Big Oil and Big Pharamceuticals and Big Insurance willtake GOOD care of you if govt is castrated.

Conservatives don’t like the way things are in America – too open, too tolerant – and they want to change it. They generally don’t want abortion around, and they don’t want environmental laws, Wall St. regulations, or other interferences with the corporate free market. Democrats want to regulate these powerful entities that determine how much we pay at the pump and how much of a safety net an average person can expect in this society; to try to give government a role in our society as a protector against private, wealthy abuse; conservative Republicans do not want that.

(And lately, some corporate Democrats have sold out to big interests, too – the same developers and hotshots that can pay for their campaigns, just like they pay for the Republicans)

So, fellow Democrats – all two of you out there on this blog – be thankful the voting population is not like the blogs or the talk radio shows – 90% to 10% conservative. If that were the case, it would be 1897 America all over again.

But America is big enough and great enough to rise above the selfishness of the conservatism of the moment. That’s when we live up to the dreams of Jefferson and Jackson – not the preachings of George W’s or Warren Hardings – Calvin Coolidges – Herbert Hoovers.