It hurts to remember Steve didn’t make it all the way to see this but remember this also: he helped us get here, even though had he been along for the whole ride, he surely would have been, would still be, pissed at Obama over FISA, over the bailout, even more than the rest of us.

You want coat tails? Remember these words. Decades from now, they will be in our history books:

For the better part of a decade, the
conservatives made liberal a dirty word. Well, it isn’t. It represents
the best and most noble nature of what America stands for: equitable
government services, old age pensions, health care, education, fair
trials and humane imprisonment. It is the heart and soul of what made
American different and better than other countries. Not only an escape
from oppression, but the opportunity to thrive in land free of
tradition and the repression that can bring. We offered a democracy
which didn’t enshrine the rich and made them feel they had an
obligation to their workers.
 
Bush and the people around him disdain that. They think, by
accident of birth and circumstance, they were meant to rule the world
and those who did not agree would suffer.
 
Liberal does not and has not meant weak until the conservatives
said it did. Was Martin Luther King weak? Bobby Kennedy? Gene McCarthy?
It was the liberals who remade this country and ended legal segregation
and legal sexism. Not the conservatives, who wanted to hold on to the
old ways.
 
It’s time to regain the spirit of FDR and Truman and the people
around them. People who believed in the public good over private gain.
It is time to stop apologizing for being a liberal and be proud to
fight for your beliefs. No more shying away or being defined by other
people. Liberals believe in a strong defense and punishment for crime.
But not preemption and pointless jail sentences. We believe no American
should be turned away from a hospital because they are too poor or lack
a proper legal defense. We believe that people should make enough from
one job to live on, to spend time on raising their family. We believe
that individuals and not the state should dictate who gets married and
why. The best way to defend marriage is to expand, not restrict it.
 
It was the liberals who opposed the Nazis while the conservatives
were plotting to get their brown shirts or fund Hitler. It was the
liberals who warned about Spain and fought there, who joined the RAF to
fight the Germans, who brought democracy to Germany and Japan. Let us
not forget it was the conservatives who opposed defending America until
the Germans sank our ships. They would have done nothing as Britain
came under Nazi control. It was they who supported Joe McCarthy and his
baseless, drink fueled claims.
 
Without liberals, there would be no modern America, just a Nazi
sattlelite state. Liberals weak on defense? Liberals created America’s
defense. The conservatives only need vets at election time.
 
It is time to stop looking for anaccomodation with the right. They
want none for us. They want to win, at any price. So, you have a
choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what
are you?