Over the last eight years, the Faux News style point counter-point "news" format has largely consisted of putting on someone who represents the views of like 80% of the people and giving equal weight to some nut who represents like 2% of people not in mental institutions.  I think we've all been taken in by that false "balance" to one degree or another.

The obsession with the PUMA movement is another good example - a relatively small group of Democrats sucked all the oxygen out of the first two days of the convention.  I am not saying that these folks are irrelevant or shouldn't be considered, but I am saying that the amount of attention and energy that was devoted to such a small group when we actually have so many problems in this country we should be addressing, seemed out of whack.

NOT.
They've enabled the GOP for 2 years now. SCHIP, habeus, FISA. I'm watching Dean on cable talking about going after evangelicals.

When she says this:

There wasn't much disagreement at all on issues or the fact that the party establishment is not going to do what needs to be done without strong outside pressure.

I just laugh.  

I think she completely misses the point.  She had to go to the Big Tent in Denver to discover progressives can identify the issues? It's hard to tell, perhaps, because the BlogoVillage so seldom writes about issues on a consistent basis and prefers to write about electoral horse race issues and the money-raising that goes with it.   But I think it has always been clear that everyone agreed on the underlying issues; they just disagreed on the prioritization of those issues.  And the arguments about prioritization usually overwhelmed any discussion of actual issues.

It's even been clear that people who don't self identify as progressives agree on the issues.  Look at the polls.

And the second point - that everyone realizes that the party establishment won't do what needs to be done without strong outside pressure? Well, it may not have been clear at the beginning of 2007 but anyone following Iraq war funding issue or FISA, which means most people who call themselves progressive, knew that months ago. Did she have to go to Denver to discover that?  No.  The key here has never been what everyone agrees about.  The key is that everyone disagreed and continues to disagree over the best strategy for exerting that pressure.

She, like every blogger, has her own ideas about the priority of progressive issues and the best strategy for exerting pressure.  I think that what really happened in Denver is that she met a bunch of people who agreed with her on her priorities and on her strategy and that made her feel better.  Meeting people who agree with you always makes you feel better.  But it doesn't really mean you've solved the problem and actually prioritized the issues or come up with a strategy.

Please, if you are able, edit this first line.

I've cringed and shuddered (it's almost like hearing styrofoam squeaking/shrieking when rubbed together) for years at the Repub construction. I began hearing it from the MCMers, then younger Democrats themselves began saying "Democrat Party": Where will it stop?

Joe McCarthy used this construction in order to denigrate the Democrats (and much earlier, opponents would shout, "You rat, you rat, you Democrat" to irritate and infuriate party supporters; that was in the 1800's, iirc), and Reagan and Repubs afterwards love to use it.  I once asked an erudite Republican on a call-in show how long it had taken him to learn how to use such an inelegant and incorrect locution--guy just laughed. It is a joke to them.