Today I spent two and a half hours knocking on doors in a neighborhood about two miles from my house.  It was the first concrete step I have taken on the road to the 2006 elections.  The main purpose of today's canvassing was to make initial contact with registered Demoratic voters to find out what issues are important to them and to enhance the accuracy of the voter lists.  Although it is still almost a year before the election, and it may seem like this sort of activitiy is unlikely to have a significant effect on the results, this is the kind of work which forms the foundation for the kinds of success we saw recently in Virginia and New Jersey.   And it felt good to be taking some sort of action to vent my anger with the sort of people who countenance treason in the form of outing our covert agents for political ends and who call a decorated veteran of two wars a coward for dissenting from their clap louder strategy in a failing occupation.  

There was a main page thread which started last night which grew to over 500 posts.  The topic was "If you could ask one question at the debates" and there were many wonderful suggestions.  Since the thread was so long I selected some of the favorites and have listed them here to give them more visibility and to give everyone a chance to vote for the best.

If you do not want to read through the whole list, the top ten are in the extended entry. I edited and combined some of the entries to get the list down to only ten.  I suggest you read the whole list if you haven't already.  

Last night on my way home from work I got off the subway a few stops early (at McPherson Square) and walked across the street to Lafayette Park to participate in the candlelight vigil in honor of the 1000+ members of our military who have sacrificed their lives while fulfilling their oaths to defend the United States of America from all enemies.  It was a moving experience, and I thought I would share my perspective on the event here.

I arrived about thirty minutes before the scheduled start of the event (8:00 pm) so I walked around the park a few minutes.  The view of the White House across Pennsylvania Avenue was somewhat obstructed by construction fencing, but the park and the weather were stunningly beautiful.

I walked past a tent festooned with anti-nuclear war posters manned by a bearded gentleman who appeared to be my age.  The signs indicated that this was part of a non-stop protest which had been continuously ongoing since 1981.  I was trying to think of a conversation starter when I noticed a few people arriving with candles at the park entrance, so I went to join them.

Blogger is messed up today, to the last post at Atrios' site has 600+ comments.  One of them towards the end is too good not to be seen by more people than will skim through that many posts, so I have excerpted some of it below.  The whole thread is here.  

Here's the best part of Barry Champlain's comment:

 

I received a copy of these remarks made by Doris "Granny D" Haddock's this weekend in New Hampshire, as part of her campaign for the senate seat currently held by Judd Gregg.  I thought they were worthy of a wider audience, so here they are: (in the extended entry)

The following letter was sent to a mailing list to which I subscribe.  I found it to be eloquent and moving.  I contacted the author and she gave me permission to post it.  

An Open Letter to President Bush

February 24, 2004

Dear Mr. President,

This morning you felt compelled to introduce an amendment to the Constitution of the United States defining marriage as existing only between one man and one woman.

You say that this will create "clarity."  I would like you to share this clarity with my first grade daughter on her school playground, when the children,  imitating their role models as they always do, will take up the issue.  Because I dread those conversations with every fiber of my being.