From the folks who brought you Michael Richards ranting, Britney Spears flashing, and Princess Di crashing fatally in a Paris tunnel, get ready to dish the Washington dirt. TMZ.com is opening a branch in DC.

I can hardly wait. No longer will the elite politicos be able to hide behind the grey walls of Congress. No more will they run from unpleasant truths that they thought they could conceal. Now they will run from SUVs filled with smarmy photogs with ultra-zoom lenses and camcorders.

So many stories with profound relevance to the country have gone unreported for years. Stories like military hospitals that mistreated wounded soldiers; intelligence services spying on American citizens; federal agencies lying to congressional oversight committees; White House operatives outing CIA agents; and the fixing of evidence of WMDs to justify pre-emptive war. While we all had to wait years for many of these stories to come to light, we will no longer have to wait to find out which senator’s aide is having an affair with what deputy chief of staff who slammed their car into a convenience store while under the influence of NyQuil. It’s good to see that the media’s priorities are in order.

Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) weighs in on TMZ’s prospects for success:

“Washington is where the term ‘celebrity’ includes former surgeons general, defense lawyers and Pat Buchanan. TMZ is going to be bored out of its mind.”

That’s true. But Arianna Huffington sees it differently:

“Let’s see, Mark Foley, ‘Duke’ Cunningham, Ted Haggard, Claude Allen at Target, William Jefferson’s frozen 90 Gs, the Bush twins, ‘Scooter’ Libby, Ann Coulter, Deborah Jeane Palfrey and her 10,000-name trick book. Too boring? I don’t think so.”

Hmm. That’s true too. I guess the ultimate truth is that there will be a lot of ugly, boring people, doing a lot of stupid, titillating things, and TMZ will be there to record it all for the American people and the world.

I can hardly contain my pride.

Now this is a bad day.
Newspapers calling for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales …
so far:

• New York Times
• Sacremento Bee
• Washington Post
• Los Angeles Times
• Philadephia Inquirer
• Buffalo (N.Y.) News
• Florida Today
• Financial Times
• Louisville Courier-Journal
• San Francisco Chronicle
• Dallas Morning News
• Chicago Tribune

In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upward mobile.
~ Hunter S. Thompson

As yesterday’s debate in the Senate stumbled aimlessly for hours without conclusion, there were moments of clarity from unexpected sources:

“If you believe that this new strategy is flawed or that our cause is hopeless, then vote to stop it. Vote to cut off funds. Vote for a binding timeline for U.S. withdrawal.” ~ Joe Lieberman (I)

Click To Play Flash Movie

Here, here. Of course Joe was making a completely different point than what this soundbite implies. The rest of his mutterings affirmed his well known affection for the Bush Doctrine and his purpose was to help Republicans in the senate quash an open and substantive debate.

The debate that Democrats are attempting to hold in the senate has already been held in the rest of the country. Though you wouldn’t know it by the news reports, the American people have made an overwhelming and durable decision that the war in Iraq does not serve the interests of our soldiers, our security, or our country. Poll after poll bears this out. And yet Congress still feels a need to have a debate. They are so far behind the people they purport to serve that they can’t even see us in the distance.

This representational disconnect is all the more perplexing when you consider that our representatives have just emerged from a campaign that was utterly devoid of ambiguity. November 7, 2006, was a rebuke of the Bush administration due almost entirely to their stubborn insistence on prosecuting this unnecessary, unpopular, and counter-productive war in Iraq. The Republican Party lost both chambers of Congress because the people were sick and tired of suffering the loss of human life and national honor. But now, with the Democratic victors in Washington, the people are still waiting for leadership.

The Democratic Party would be wise to heed Sen. Lieberman’s advice. We need a vote NOW to STOP the war. The people have made their decision and it is time for our servants in Washington to pay attention to US. Ignore the pundits and the liars who have been wrong for four years running. Ignore the media that continues to promulgate myths from decades past. Ending the war does not mean we don’t support the troops. Ending the war does not make us weak on defense. To the contrary, it strengthens our defensive position by allowing us to deploy the troops in the real war against terrorism for which Iraq was never the central front.

If the newly minted Democratic Congress is not able to follow the instructions we gave a mere three months ago, then it is not just the war in Iraq that is hopeless. We need to start worrying about the viability of Democracy. How much louder do we need to shout? It isn’t that they can’t hear us, it’s that they don’t want to. But they know we can hear them. Even Sen. Lieberman knows that:

“…we are being heard across America by our constituents, who are wondering if their Congress is capable of serious action, not just hollow posturing.”

But, sadly, Jon Stewart makes the most cogent observation in response:

“Turns out they weren’t even capable of hollow posturing.”

Vote to STOP the war!

They thought it was dead. They thought they had killed it. They thought it had passed with the years that cascaded by. Its memory was turned into a hackneyed hippie cliche that evoked ridicule and visions of granola-eating, berkenstock-wearing, pot-smoking slackers. But…

Peace is back! And it’s pissed! No warmonger is safe anymore.

Zombie Dove is here to kick the asses of the asses who advocate for war, intolerance, and greed.

In this battle for peace, Zombie Dove will be ruffling more than feathers. Click the link to see an introduction to this unlikely hero of cooperative coexistence. And watch for future episodes in the everlasting adventures of Zombie Dove.