A newsletter that's unfortunately becoming all too essential regular reading is Steven Aftergood's Secrecy News from the Project on Government Secrecy of the Federation of American Scientists. Today's issue (Nov 18, 2004) had the following alarming item.

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WILL CONGRESS CRIPPLE INTELLIGENCE OVERSIGHT?

Congressional oversight of intelligence may be sharply diminished as
a result of ongoing negotiations between House and Senate conferees
over pending intelligence reform legislation, the Los Angeles Times
reported yesterday.

"Sen. John D. 'Jay' Rockefeller IV (D-W. Va.), a member of the
conference committee, said the Senate's chief negotiators had
accepted a House demand stripping out all congressional oversight
of the national intelligence director," wrote Mary Curtius in the
Los Angeles Times.   more »

I'm planning on writing a fair bit in the near future about where Democrats can go from here. As I wrote yesterday, I think we do great on issues and ideas, but have some work to do on thematic packaging. So as a first step, I'd like to propose a provisional Mission Statement for the Party. In the days to come, I'll apply that Mission Statement to various issues and ideas that come up in elections.

This is a big job and I'm looking for some help. But I'm ready to start the ball rolling with the following proposed MISSION STATEMENT:

The Democratic Party will provide an enlightened government that will help Americans be free, safe, healthy, and prosperous.

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I'm a great believer in the proposition that every citizen, even the most partisan, should greet a new President with an open mind and give him or her a fair chance to be a great President. But that principle doesn't apply in the same way to a second termer, and it doesn't apply at all to a second-termer who has refused to acknowledge that he made a single mistake during his term, who has never fired an underling, and whose primary campaign theme was Stay The Course.

If George W. Bush actually does dramatically change his stripes in a second term, I am prepared to notice that and adjust my stance accordingly. Until that point, my attitude toward the new President is combative. I want to use all fair political means to neuter his Presidency.

But I am not optimistic enough to think I will fully succeed. I expect our tax system to be rendered more economically unjust, and I don't expect to see it recover during my lifetime; I expect our nation's standing in the world to fall further, and for the world's citizens to more and more blame our arrogance on America and not just on Bush; I expect our courts to be packed with quiet, angry men in dark suits with slicked-back hair who will legislative into the law protections for power and moneyed interests that won't disappear in my lifetime; and I expect one more huge blunder that no one could possibly predict at this time, like Iraq in the first term.

There's only one good thing: I expect the next four years to be years of reaping the whirlwind for the wind Bush has sewn in the last four years, and there won't be any doubt about whose fault it is. That may make this outcome, in the long run, a good thing. That's just hard to see right now.
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