I gotta say, it's pretty scary to me when I find myself agreeing with Newt Gingrich. After blasting President Bush earlier this month, the man who made his name with the Contract On America, cutting anything and everything to "starve the beast," was on ABC's This Week talking about how we need "effective government" with progressive policies.

I noticed him a few months ago on C-SPAN, talking about this electronic medical records initiative he's been promoting with Hillary Clinton, where it struck me just how he was positioning himself against the dominionists. Now he was going against the conservative script from which he made his 1990s political career, asserting strongly that there definitely is an important role for government to play -- effective government.

And just so you had appropriate context, George Will wore his ass for a hat and offered a contrasting view, blaming the suffering of New Orleans on the breakdown of family, which by the way, he notes, is most striking among black families. (Poor incurious George the pundit never stopped to think that maybe it's urban poverty that causes the breakup of families. But he hasn't changed his hairstyle since he was 5, so we can't expect him to actually change his sclerotic preconceptions as an adult, now, can we?)

(Fareed Zacharia did the public service of pointing out that Gingrich is now speaking out against the very policies he enacted as Speaker. Thank you for reminding our viewers, Fareed.)

The tide is turning against the venalitans. Today's would-be 9/11 war rally turned out a piffle. Nobody's missing "Brownie." And every time a Republican opens his mouth, garbage comes out. (One would think that means hope for more progressive Republican politicians, but now that Arnold Schwarznegger has gone girly man and flip-flopped on gay marriage in California, maybe the political realities intra-GOP won't allow for populist policies.)

But are the Democrats doing any better? Having sacrificed all moral positions for the sake of political expediency over the years, do they have any credibility upon which to stand? We'll see. Nancy Pelosi held her own on CNN, and today Barack Obama was quite eloquent. But who's going to lead the charge?

And will they figure it out before Bush has packed the court with advocates of reproductive slavery?

Recommended: Amanda's look at the right's attempts to blame the victims. Snippet:

There's nothing like privileged white boys complaining about what their social inferiors are supposedly getting away with. The implications behind people who invoke "welfare" when excusing the vile mistreatment of the people who were left behind in New Orleans are staggering--ultimately, the argument boils down to the idea that black person who doesn't have a job making money for someone else doesn't deserve to live. Not nearly as far removed from the slave owners of yore as they probably congratulate themselves for being.

About author

media girl also blogs at other places.