No offense taken Fruvious. They are definately not the same, that's for sure. I just feel they are both more concerned with beating the other in this election and taking pot shots at each other than taking care of our nations problems. Then again, maybe I'm wrong.

Trouble370, I understand where you are coming from, but I stand by what I said. I didn't say that Congress did the right thing 50% of the time, I said that the Democrats did the right thing 50% of the time. You picked 3 things out of the hundreds of things that come up before congress every year to deal with. Yeah, they're big ass things, but when you look at all the stuff they vote on, I think at least 50% of the time the Democrats are fighting for the right stuff. You've got to remember that they hold no majority in the House or Senate, so you don't get to see many successes. That doesn't meant they aren't trying. They just don't have the votes.

To answer the 3 things you mention specifically though.

1) Iraq War. This is one of those things I said before that they didn't see it in their best interest politically to challenge Bush on. After 9/11 they thought they couldn't fight Bush's predetermined march to war due to the popularity boost Bush had after the attacks and they didn't have the votes to stop it. They saw it as political suicide to fight against it knowing they couldn't win it. They were wrong and they were spineless about it, but that's on that 50% side where it didn't serve them to challenge him even if it was the right thing to do. And had a Democrat been in office, do you think we would be in Iraq right now? Not likely.

2) Florida Recount. Another thing on that 50% side that they saw as going against their political interests. By the time the black house members tried to push an investigation into what happened, the Supreme Court decision had already been made in Bush's favor and Gore had given up. What was the point if they didn't have the majority in Congress to go through with an investigation that was gonna get whitewashed by the Republican majority anyway (you've seen how suckass most of these Republican run investigative committees have been lately)? Remember, this is when the Senate had 51 votes in the Senate, because the one NH guy (Jeffers?) had not turned into an independent yet. If Gore didn't want them doing it, they saw it as a bad political move since people seemed to just want to move on and get past the whole fiasco. Yeah, once again it was the wrong move and spineless on their part, but I really believe that since Gore had given up already, they just figured, why bother?

3) Eco-concerns? Do you mean economy or ecological? Either way, on this one you are utterly wrong. Congress and Bush have been pushing horrible things through almost non-stop for the last 3 years in both areas, not to mention their hateful social agenda. However, the Republicans hold the majority in every way and if they can get all their members on board with them, then they get it pushed through. But if you look at the record, the Democrats are fighting all of this stuff tooth and nail.

-The bad Medicare changes, Democrats fought tooth and nail against them.
-The horrible Clean Air Initiative, against it.
-Each of Bush's criminal tax cuts, against them.
-The elimination of overtime pay, against it.
-Paperless voting machines, against them.
-The disgusting Healthy Forests Initiative, against it.
-The loosening of FCC corporate ownership regulations, against them.
-The partial birth abortion ban, against it.
-Bush's ludicrously awful Judicial appointments, they've been stonewalling most of them.
-The constitutonal gay marriage ban amendment, against it (one of their few successes because they didn't need a majority of congress in order to defeat it).
-Oil drilling in the Alaskan Wilderness, against it (another one of their few successes, due in part to Kerry).
-Etc., etc., etc. I could name 50 more if I had the time.

Over and over and over, they are fighting all of these incredibly bad things that Bush has been pushing through. Usually the vote on the Democratic side is 47, 48, 49 in the Senate and in the 200's in the House. That means that they are voting together as a party for the right things. You just don't see it because they keep losing as a minority party in Congress and the media is not doing it's job in spotlighting this stuff.

So I stand by my statement that at least 50% of the time or more, the Democrats do the right thing. As horrible as the Iraq War is, it's only one piece of the hundreds of things they vote on that make a difference in our lives everyday. I would even say that if you looked at the Congressional Record and studied each of the items closely, you would see that the Democrats are on the right side MOST of the time.

Can you imagine if they had held a majority in either the Senate or the House for the last 3 years? That alone could have stopped half of all the shit that Bush has pulled. No offense to you, but I keep hearing this "they're all the same" crap and it infuriates me. It's EASY and LAZY to just say that they're all politicians and it doesn't matter which party really wins, because it sure as Fuck DOES matter.

The Democrats do dumb things every now and then. They make stupid mistakes occasionally. They get spineless sometimes when they shouldn't. Like all politicians, they want to sustain their political careers as long as they can. But most of them want to do the right thing and most of them fight on the right side of the issues that matter to you and me and anyone else that has progressive ideas. Put Kerry in the White House and give one of the Houses of Congress to him and you are gonna see a major overhaul of the nasty things Bush and his cronies have done and a push for many vitally important things that the Republicans have totally ignored.

BTW, I am a member of the Green Party, so I'm not some Democrat cheerleader saying this. I just really believe that right now they are our only hope to remove Bush and that they will at least start us heading back in the right direction!