The Patriotic Bully Card

In a column unambiguously titled "Not. Backing. Hillary.", Ivins lets loose on a Democratic Party mired in equivocation and political calculation. She takes the party to task for yielding to the Bush administration's tactic of "playing the patriotic bully card" on the war. It's refreshing spleen-venting in a week where Harry Reid apologized for telling the truth and two leading Democrats—Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh—tried to out-hawk the White House by calling for a tougher stance on Iran.

While the Democrats' spinelessness—did I mention the refusal to filibuster Alito?—leaves most of us sputtering in frustration, it leads Ivins to articulate fury: