Stoller makes a very cogent point about America's historic role -- and Bush's declining role -- in world affairs:

Much of what America did in international affairs prior to the Bush Presidency was to act as sort of buoy, or a neutral third party in negotiations, a bulwark that other nations could broadly trust. America didn't always keep its word, and it wasn't always a perfectly done role, but there really was no alternative. And I think what the Iraq war has shown is that the alternative really is total chaos, and that means that America can reclaim a leading role in global affairs if we begin to rebuild our credibility. Because of Iran's recent bad behavior, nations around the world want to see us reclaim that role, though with more checks on our range of action.

Bush, aside from the ability to start new wars, is largely irrelevant to that goal. Most Presidents find their influence waning in the final two years, but with Bush, it seems like that decline will be larger than usual. Bush lies almost constantly, except when he doesn't know what he's talking about and says something nonsensical. Domestically and internationally, that means it's useful to try to ignore him as much as possible and do business with the people that will be in charge when he's gone. Pelosi, in going to Syria, and in telling Bush to calm down, is looking much more like a President than Bush is. Bush is even having his role as commander-in-chief challenged, by both his own ineptitude and the public's willingness to strip him of power. By default, that power is slowly bleeding over to Pelosi, Reid, and whichever member of Congress is leading that day and filling the massive void Bush has left. This is not an ideal scenario, but it's the one that Bush set himself up for when he refused to acknowledge the results of the 2006 elections and what that meant for his method of governance.

He may hold the constitutional office, but he is less and less the President every day.

INTRODUCTION
We live in a time when the call for freedom and democracy echoes across the globe. Eastern Europe has cast off the totalitarian governments of almost half a century, and the republics of the former Soviet Union are struggling to replace the Communist regime of almost 75 years with a new democratic order, something they could never before experience. But the drama surrounding the extraordinary political changes in Europe obscures the remarkable degree to which the promise of democracy has mobilized peoples throughout the world. North and South America are now virtually a hemisphere of democracy; Africa is experiencing an unprecedented era of democratic reform; and new, dynamic democracies have taken root in Asia.

This worldwide phenomenon belies the skeptics who have contended that modern liberal democracy is a uniquely Western artifact that can never be successfully replicated in non-Western cultures. In a world where democracy is practiced in nations as different as Japan, Italy, and Venezuela, the institutions of democracy can legitimately claim to address universal human aspirations for freedom and self-government.

Yet freedom's apparent surge during the last decade by no means ensures its ultimate success. Chester E. Finn, Jr., professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt University and director of the Educational Excellence Network, said in remarks before a group of educators and government officials in Managua, Nicaragua: "That people naturally prefer freedom to oppression can indeed be taken for granted. But that is not the same as saying that democratic political systems can be expected to create and maintain themselves over time. On the contrary. The idea of democracy is durable, but its practice is precarious."

Democratic values may be resurgent today, but viewed over the long course of human history, from the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century to the rise of one-party regimes in the mid-20th century, most democracies have been few and short-lived. This fact is cause for neither pessimism nor despair; instead, it serves as a challenge. While the desire for freedom may be innate, the practice of democracy must be learned. Whether the hinge of history will continue to open the doors of freedom and opportunity depends on the dedication and collective wisdom of the people themselves--not upon any of history's iron laws and certainly not on the imagined benevolence of self- appointed leaders.

Contrary to some perceptions, a healthy democratic society is not simply an arena in which individuals pursue their own personal goals. Democracies flourish when they are tended by citizens willing to use their hard-won freedom to participate in the life of their society--adding their voices to the public debate, electing representatives who are held accountable for their actions, and accepting the need for tolerance and compromise in public life. The citizens of a democracy enjoy the right of individual freedom, but they also share the responsibility of joining with others to shape a future that will continue to embrace the fundamental values of freedom and self-government.

http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/whatsdem/whatdm1.htm

dkulju has a must-read diary on the stunning grassroots upset victories of Carol Shea-Porter in NH-1:

Our opponent had a 10-1 money advantage, multiple union endorsements, the big DCCC endorsement, paid DC staffers and some quiet support from the State party (which officially remained neutral). We had a wonderful candidate, an energized grass roots army, a great strategy, and the technical ability to target our efforts better than the professionals. We didn't just outwork them, we out smarted them as well.

And that would be a really great story of people powered politics...except we were about to write a better one.

Read the whole thing here.

The NYT has a good profile of Jon Tester and his hometown:

For all the talk about the new Democrats swept into office on Tuesday, the senator-elect from Montana truly is your grandfather’s Democrat — a pro-gun, anti-big-business prairie pragmatist whose life is defined by the treeless patch of hard Montana dirt that has been in the family since 1916.

It is a place with 105-degree summer days and winter chills of 30 below zero, where his grandparents are buried, where his two children learned to grow crops in a dry land entirely dependent on rainfall, and where, he says, he earned barely $20,000 a year farming over the last decade.

“It’s always been tight, trying to make a living on that farm,” said Mr. Tester, still looking dazed and bloodshot-eyed after defeating Senator Conrad Burns, a three-term incumbent, by fewer than 3,000 votes.

Chouteau County, where Mr. Tester lives on a homestead of 1,800 acres, lost 8.5 percent of its population in the last five years — typical of much of rural America that has been in decline since the Dust Bowl.

To make extra money, Mr. Tester taught music to schoolchildren, and still plays a decent trumpet despite having only seven fingers (he lost the rest to a meat grinder as a child). He got into politics just eight years ago in a sustained rage over what utility deregulation had done to small farmers and businesses in Montana.

“You think of the Senate as a millionaire’s club — well, Jon is going to be the blue-collar guy who brings an old-fashioned, Jeffersonian ideal about being tied to the land,” said Steve Doherty, a friend of Mr. Tester’s for 20 years. “He’s a small farmer from the homestead. That’s absolutely who he is. That place defines him.”

The DCCC hits hard in the final days of the election. Watch the ad, rate it up -- and forward it on to your friends and family (particularly if they are still undecided):

I have a good friend who has maintained for quite some time that the "Democrats could still screw this up" -- referring, of course, to the 15 point generic lead that they're still enjoying in the polls, less than seven weeks from Election Day.

Sure enough:

McCain, the Republican rebel maverick, showed that Republicans are moral and look out for their troops.

Bush, the Republican statesman and leader, showed that he is committed to protecting Americans but that he is willing to listen and compromise when people of good faith express reservations about tactics.

The Democrats showed they are ciphers who don't have the stones to even say a word when the most important moral issue confronting the government is being debated....

The Dems are all going to be twisted into pretzels and look like they have no backbones as they struggle with a united GOP saying that McCain and Huckleberry Graham made sure "the program" is moral and necessary. Vote for it for for the terrorists. So they'll end up voting for it without getting any benefit from it.

I honestly think it would have been much, much better if they'd have forced their way into the debate and taken a firm stand -- if only to show they give a damn. This is a turn-out election and I have a feeling many a Democrat's stomach will turn as they see this triumph of GOP "leadership" in action. Why bother to vote when the Democrats don't bother to show up?

Indeed. One need only look at the headlines -- "Bush, GOP Rebels Strike Deal" -- to realize how effectively the Republicans have just outmanuevered (and destroyed) the flaccid visionless rhetoric of the D-Trip et al ("Rubberstamp Republicans", which never caught on, is now replaced by "GOP Rebels" in the parlance of the punditry).

90% of politics, to paraphrase Woody Allen, is just showing up. Yet what is abundantly clear -- once again! -- is that too many Democratic candidates, mollified into complacency by generic polling ("Let's just let the other guy implode!"), have failed to show up and offer an alternative vision. And so we end up with the McCain-Bush shell game of more militarism and less moralism -- because very few Democrats in Washington (if any) bothered to show up and speak up.

And so -- not incidentally -- the generic lead begins to evaporate.

Still time to screw this up, indeed.

Digby:

What in the hell are the Dems going to do if McCain makes a deal and this [torture bill] gets to the floor? Are they actually going to vote for a bill that eliminates habeas corpus for terrorist suspects? Because if they don't, you know what the Republicans are going to be saying, don't you? After all, the saviors of the republic and guardian kinghts of the constitution say this bill is ok. The only reason the Dems can possibly have for opposing it now is that they are terrorist loving cowards.

I have to assume the Dems have good reasons for letting McCain run with this. But they are certainly placing a lot of trust in a man who is running for president from the opposing party. If Democrats in 2006 end up voting for this McCain/Warner/Graham monstrosity based on nothing but McCain's word they have learned nothing. Unless they are willing to filibuster a month before the election, which I seriously doubt, the Republicans will have backed them into exactly the same corner they did with the Iraq war resolution and the Homeland security bills in 2002. I'm not going to believe it until I see it with my own eyes, but I'm worried.

Me too. I'll never again underestimate the ability of some leaders of a certain party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And 49 days is just enough time to lose control.

Digby has the floor:

Democrats have been demonized as being weak and ineffectual for so long that Independent voters naturally figure that they can't or won't do anything to stop the Republicans. Democratic partisans may believe, but in order to get a robust turnout throughout the country, even many of them still need to be convinced that their party leadership will follow through. Democrats must make the case in no uncertain terms that they are prepared to hold Republicans accountable --- which means that they must be willing to talk about the lack of oversight and they must promise to hold hearings into specific issues.

The Republicans will scream like banshees, but that actually plays into the Democrats' hands if they have the nerve to just stare them down and tell them to bring it. Rove's tried to innoculate against this with his little "omg! they're going to act just like we did and impeach the president!" message but its primary purpose was to get Democrats to back off. He knew that if Democrats ran on holding his boy accountable they would win. Now we have the data to back that up.

This isn't just right for 2006 -- it's right for 2008. One of the many elephants in the room of American politics is: how will the country come to terms with the excesses of the Bush years? All this talk of "unity" is premature. Unity without accountability is a free pass, and anyone who thinks that in 2009 we're just going to pick back up where we left off in 1999, as though we hadn't just endured nearly a decade of lying and looting and torturing, is absolutely out of their mind.

Not a pretty mental image, is it?

Making its way around the blogosphere is this report from the Hill:

A group of Senate Democrats is growing increasingly angry about Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (D-Conn.) campaign tactics since he lost the Democratic primary last week.

If he continues to alienate his colleagues, Lieberman could be stripped of his seniority within the Democratic caucus should he defeat Democrat Ned Lamont in the general election this November, according to some senior Democratic aides....

Democrats are worried that Lieberman may be giving Republicans a golden opportunity to undermine their message.

“I think there’s a lot of concern,” said a senior Democratic aide who has discussed the subject with colleagues. “I think the first step is if the Lieberman thing turns into a side show and hurts our message and ability to take back the Senate, and the White House and the [National Republican Senatorial Committee] manipulate him, there are going to be a lot of unhappy people in our caucus.”...

“Lieberman’s tone and message has shocked a lot of people,” said a second senior Democratic aide who has discussed the issue with other Senate Democrats. “He’s way off message for us and right in line with the White House.”

“At this point Lieberman cannot expect to just keep his seniority,” said the aide. “He can’t run against a Democrat and expect to waltz back to the caucus with the same seniority as before. It would give the view that the Senate is a country club rather than representative of a political party and political movement.”

But the real question is -- why wait? Reid should give Lieberman a closed-door ultimatum: drop the Republican rhetoric or lose your assignments before the election.

Why so many Democrats on the Hill can't identify the mortal problem that Lieberman presents to Democratic hopes of retaking the Senate is beyond me. He's gone over to the other side already, folks -- just look where his money is coming from -- and there is nothing gained by trying to keep him on this side of the aisle. Give that door a swift kick as he walks out of it.

Bowers has more:

[O]nce [Lieberman] is certified on the ballot as the Connecticut for Lieberman candidate, and all challenges to his signatures have been dropped, we are going to need the Democratic leadership in the Senate to strip him of his committee assignments. As exit polls showed, the remaining Democrats and Independents who are supporting Lieberman are doing so because of his "experience." Stripping him of his committee seats would end that, and deal a crippling blow to his campaign without costing the DSCC a single dime. That would be a perfectly justifiable move because he is running against the Democratic nominee, because he is trashing every Democratic from here to kingdom come in so doing, and because we have precedent. Specifically, Frank Lautenberg did not regain his seniority when he re-entered the Senate in 2002. Considering that, why Lieberman should not be given special treatment for leaving the Democratic Party and then actively trying to undermine it? Actions have consequences, and the price for ignoring the will of Democratic voters, and then trashing the Democratic Party for your own benefit while simultaneously feeding at the Democratic Party seniority trough must be made clear. If Lieberman wants to run on his own, then he should be forced to get seniority on his own. Party seniority is earned through consistently receiving the endorsement of the will of Democratic voters, and Joe Lieberman has lost that. The second Lieberman is certified as the Connecticut for Lieberman candidate, it is time that he is only allowed Connecticut for Lieberman seniority.