Donna Edwards' win in the MD CD-4 was big news, welcome news, to the progressive community and the netroots who backed her -- big time. We've succeeded in ousting a corrupt and so-called "moderate" Democrat in favor of a much more progressive and left-leaning one. Congratulations are in order for Ms. Edwards, her campaign staff, and her supporters.

While we're celebrating, though, it would be a good thing to bend our brains around the meaning of Edwards' win when it is coupled with the other "upset" in Maryland yesterday: Representative Wayne Gilchrest's loss in the Republican primary to a "real conservative" backed by James Dobson and the Club for Growth. (Though I have always voted for the doomed Democrat in previous district elections, Gilchrest is my representative in Congress and I have on several occasions contacted his office to express my views.) Teacherken notes the Gilchrest defeat in passing, but he does not reflect much on its meaning. Other than that, I've seen little mention of the two upsets together. So, follow me after the break for some noodling.

So Super Tuesday came and went: my open heart surgery did likewise. I was able to pipe in CNN round the clock, but perhaps fortunately don't remember much of the blather. Anyway, I'm home now and recovering nicely, just to keep all those Kossacks who asked informed. But I am now wondering whether the heart of our party can be so easily mended.

As a former Edwards supporter (and one who voted for him by absentee ballot before he suspended his campaign), I am now a more neutral observer of the unfolding scene. I have a lot of catching up to do, but am more than a little dismayed by the kind of bitterness I see in today's column by Frank Rich. The opposition to Hillary Clinton seems out of all proportion to me, and that fact embroils me in the kind of identity politics I don't like (in other words, I feel the pull of gender more strongly when I feel she's being attacked unfairly). So I wish Obama would stop saying things like "Hillary's supporters will vote for me but my supporters may not vote for her." This sort of thing suggests poor sportsmanship and seems to elevate personality over sound political strategies.

In my recent comments and diaries, I have tried to advocate for wisdom over passion: progressives need to stop being distracted by the rigors of a hotly contested and vigorous nominating process and keep their eyes on the prize. The passion of Obama partisans and Clinton partisans (I was an Edwards partisan, btw) is praiseworthy and necessary, BUT ...

We simply must keep our eyes on election day in November. And I don't mean reading tea leaves to try to discern who is more likely to beat whichever GOP bastard (increasingly likely to be McCain). I mean focusing on the issues that will win for us on the real super Tuesday. So I'd like to bring two pieces to the attention of Kossacks today, one from the NY Times and one from the Washington Post.

In the great hullabaloo about whether Obama or Clinton is the more progressive, has more spine, leads more or better, or whatever, it's instructive to do a little reviewing.

Mukasey is just as bad as Gonzo when it comes to

1. telling the truth

2. condoning torture

So it's useful to ask who voted to confirm, who voted against, and WHO DID NOT VOTE.

Seriously. That's the day I am scheduled for open heart surgery to replace a congenitally defective aortic valve. So I probably won't even get the results of the day's events (or at least won't remember them! until several days later -- a real hardship for a political junkie like myself.

To replace the malfunctioning part, the surgeon will stop my heart (and put me on a heart lung machine). When he's done, he'll reboot me. All should be well but just in case it isn't, I want to explain why I voted for Edwards in the Maryland primary.

I've been around a while -- marched on Washington in the 60s, decided to give the democratic convention in Chicago in '68 a miss at the last minute, voted for McGovern and even for Dukakis (yikes!). I've participated in my share of lost causes (equal rights amendment, anyone?) but am generally something of a pragmatist especially as I have grown older and seen more great ideas and ideals shrivel up in our two-party machine system. So why did I stick with Edwards?

Of course it's only to be expected from our felon-in-chief: his minions at the Pentagon are planning to make sure whoever takes over the White House on Jan. 20, 2009, will have to ask congress immediately for off-budget funding for the WARS in Iraq and Afghanistan. EVEN IF that new commander-in-chief intends to withdraw our troops from Irag immediately.

According to a story on All Things Considered this evening, the Pentagon's budget (some $500 billion -- more than the whole rest of the world spends on military matters) does not include any war funding. So there's a second request for $70b to fund the wars. Only that's not all: the $70b for the war represents only 25% of what will be "needed" for the coming fiscal year. So the real total (right now at least) is a whopping $280b. Bringing the total defense appropriation request up to $750b. For ONE YEAR. That's 3/4 of a trillion, folks.

There's more....

I'm an Edwards supporter, with Obama a close second choice and Clinton coming in third. BUT I think all three of our top contenders are strong and progressive, so I don't think I'll be crushed if my guy doesn't win or if Hillary ends up being our nominee.

That said, I'd like to speculate a bit on some thoughts about Hillary's comeback in New Hampshire. Folks doing much more informed analysis of turnouts and demographics and such from the exit polls have been focusing on gender, race, age, change, experience, tears, news cycles, media backlash plus all the usual suspects. But I wonder if Hillary's secret ace in the hole might not have been the very worrying economic news that has been reported since the start of the new year. The new unemployment figures came out o January 5, two days after the Iowa caucuses; the djia has fallen about 12% since October -- and a big chunk of that decline happened between January 5  and January 8 (with a big 200+ point drop on NH primary day itself); Christmas is over but the bills remain; and the economy was cited by a lot of voters as their chief concern. Those voters, as I recall, broke for Hillary.

This story may not as big as the current juiciness on Giuliani or other hot topics, but it is part and parcel of the Republican mendacity that saturates our government, down to the lowliest and least effectual agencies around.

This time it's the National Endowment for the Arts and its latest scary, scary report called To Read or Not to Read. The report claims that because Americans are choosing to devote less of their leisure time to reading books, reading proficiency is declining. As reading as a leisure activity declines, the report predicts that many valued forms of civic engagement -- volunteering, voting, and going to museums, for example -- will also decline.

Trouble is, they've cooked the data.

So Wayne Barrett and the Village Voice have delivered a bombshell only no one seems to be interested? David Shuster (aka Keith Olbermann) covered it on Countdown last night (10/25) but in today's NYTimes or Washington Post? Nada.

Here's the scoop: Barrett got ahold of accounts of Giuliani's testimony to the 911 Commission, testimony that was to have been kept secret until after the 2008 elections, though no one has explained why. The substance of Giuliani's testimony, however, reveals why he would have wanted it hidden away. It seems that Rudy the Terrorist Slayer is no such thing.

Those of us old enough to remember Watergate first hand cannot forget John Dean's remark about a cancer growing on the presidency, a comment he made to Richard Nixon in the Oval Office on March 21, 1973, and recorded of course by Nixon's secret taping system (see and hear the transcript here.)

That cancer was a metaphoric one, but one whose spread we still live with (see Cheney, Dick, and Addington, David for examples of the metastasis of that illness). But now we have a candidate for President who has been diagnosed with a rare form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.  Fred Thompson is not the only presidential candidate who has been treated for cancer: both Giuliani and McCain have also undergone treatments for cancers -- of the prostate in RG's case and melanoma in JM's. But in many ways Thompson's is the most serious and the most likely to recur.

What are the political consequences of these facts and how can we help them become consequential?