Still stalling and cogitating. So in the meantime, as inspired by today’s Associated Press, and with apologies to Frank O’Hara:

Hillary Clinton has collapsed!
I was surfing along and suddenly
it started raining bullets and snowing spin
But Bush said it was hailing freedom
but Texas hail hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to vote but the media
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
Senator Clinton Recovers After Collapsing!
there is no spin in Baghdad
there is no sovereignty in Iraq
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Hillary we love you get up.

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Still mulling over my plan to save our democracy, and our Democratic Party, from ourselves. Will post when things are more fleshed out.

But in the meantime, I thought I’d post the following. Just to let you know that (a) I hadn’t died, and (b) I’m still one angry liberal.

Last night, the local political club I help run put on our first house party of the year. This house party was part of a nationwide teleconference with a bunch of other local Democratic clubs. Ostensibly, the point of the party was that every candidate for DNC chair was going to call in and give a little 5-minute speech about why they should run the party. What I’ve written below is what I said, to start things off.

“This morning I read two things that put me in mind for tonight’s party. One was something I read in the paper, and the second was something we read in church. Now, I know not everyone here shares my particular brand of faith, but don’t worry, I won’t harp on the God-talk too much.

Let me start with the positive. In church, the first reading of the day was from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 1, verses 10-18. I won’t go over the whole thing, but the gist was the following: Now I beseech you, brethren, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have heard from some of Chloe’s people that there are contentions among you, with some saying ‘I am of Paul’ or ‘I am of Apollos’ and ‘I am of Cephas.’

Why are we here tonight? We are here because we are Democrats, and we should be perfectly joined together in the same mind and to the same purpose. Many of you were at the town hall meeting yesterday and heard some discussion about how we as Democrats need to be “on message.” There is some dispute within the party as to what that message should be. That is a problem, but let me give you why I am a Democrat:

We are Democrats because we are committed to economic justice, to social liberty, and to the preservation of the commonwealth. By which I mean we are committed to the knowledge that there exist things that we must do in common, because as individuals we shall fail. Let me repeat, we are Democrats because we know that there exist things that the government must do, because if we try to do them on our own, we shall fail.

We must, for instance, commit ourselves to the provision of a decent standard of living to those who provided for us. For our parents and grandparents, for those who fed us, clothed us, built this great nation into what we enjoy today, we must provide pensions — through Social Security. To fail to provide for those who gave us what we have is not merely ungracious and ill-bred, it is immoral.

To fail to ensure a healthy, happy childhood for every blessed brat in this nation — through a sound public education system and decent public health insurance — to fail to provide this minimum for every child is cruel, unjust, and immoral.

We are Democrats because we are committed to economic justice, social liberty, and the preservation of the commonwealth, and we must be united in the same mind and to the same purpose on this.

But there was a second reading I want to share with you. Well, two actually: Andrew Sullivan’s reviews this Sunday in the New York Times of two recent books about Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, and a full page ad by a group calling itself “Not In Our Name.”

For us, as American citizens, to sit idly and passively by while our leaders — our President, our Secretary of Defense, our Attorney General, the man who would be our Attorney General, and the woman who would be our new Secretary of State — for you and I to sit idly by while they engage in torture, wholesale slaughter, the mutilation of our most cherised ideals as Americans (Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, not to forget Freedom and Democracy) and all of this in our name, to sit back and allow this to happen is wrong. It is to comply with evil.

So why are we here? We are here to listen to 12 good men and women and hear what they propose to do to unite us as Democrats in mind and purpose, in message and organization. But also to hear what they have to say as to how we shall fight those who would — and are, right now as we sit and sip tea in a free land — increase injustice, assault our liberties, belittle our commonwealth, and commit evil in our name and with our consent.

P.S. Only five of the twelve candidates managed to get their act together and participate in the teleconference, even though all had been invited and nine had RSVP’ed. Some of the no-shows were presumably weather-related. Wellington Webb and Howard Dean both acquited themselves well, especially in focusing on the need for grassroots mobilizing. The other three were forgettable. Martin Frost did not succeed in making the call, for reasons unknown.

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