Chance to have input

The web site democrats.com has a straw poll on the issues of most concern to those who have registered with their site. The site is not the official site of the Democratic Party, but is one affiliate of a loose conglomerate that includes / began with the afterdowningstreet.org site.

I am impressed that the top vote-getter of the many choices is restoring the powers involved in using a writ of habeas corpus in the United States Courts. The next most frequently endorsed is establishing a higher minimum wage. Also in the top four is ending the war in Iraq.

Otherwise, I have to say, this straw poll, with its legitimate choices, is a device of the “impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney” element, not those in newly elected congressional Democrats who are dedicating their efforts to governing the country.

This list does provide an assemblage of priorities that would be helpful to use in a letter to your congressperson, and to the new leadership of Congress. I am not assuming that you are a committed Democrat; some very important issues cross party lines and are of concern to conservatives as well as liberals.

I am also not completely disavowing the effort to impeach Bush and Cheney; I look at this long list as a potential agenda that can be delayed or even swamped by an impeachment circus. Both justice and governance are necessary and desirable. Governance looks to be the more politically possible.

Transgression Timetable

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
Henry Kissinger, New York Times, Oct. 28, 1973
US (German-born) diplomat & scholar (1923 – )
Posted on http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/29641.html

The quote appeared on my Google home page, November 1, 2006, in the Quotation of the Day feature.