The diary below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal, on April 9th.

Good evening, I love New York! Applause. Smiles broadly and waits for silence. And I proudly accept your nomination for President of the United States. Crowd erupts with sustained applause and cheers.

My friends, the time has come for an American renaissance of community, values, and justice. Almost seven years ago in this great city Osama Bin Laden unleashed his terror and the Republican Party unleashed a reign of indecency. Tonight we begin anew in the very city where it all went wrong. We bring hope.

Most Americans now agree that Bush and his Administration's policies have been a disaster for the nation.  Nevertheless, the tired refrain from the majority of Republicans continues to fault Democrats for the current mess.  That's chutzpah.  When your party controls the White House, both Houses of Congress, the courts, the electoral system, the Justice Department, the agencies responsible for administering the nation's business, the mechanisms for any oversight capability, as well as the procedures for correcting the overreaching efforts of all of the above, it's difficult, to say the least, to blame the other party for the current state of the Union.  To say the most, it's irresponsible, disingenuous, and desperate.

Even as I write, the BBC is reporting President Bush's insistence that Iraq is not, in fact, in a civil war.  Moreover, it's a problem HE won't have to deal with:

Mr Bush hinted to reporters that US troops would remain in Iraq beyond the end of his presidency in January 2009.
Asked about a timetable for the full withdrawal of US troops, President Bush said: "That of course is an objective and that will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq."

How's that for a "rosy outlook"?

Well, here we are in suspended animation somewhere between stop and go. Momentum against the Bush regime has slowed. What had been a freefall, crash and burn carnival ride of stomach dropping, gut wrenching political drama has slowed to the point of watching grass grow on molasses in the dead of nuclear winter.

Am I wrong? Perhaps it's because I have not been as dialed-in the last few weeks as I had been the previous few months. So maybe it's me, but my impression is things are temporarily in stasis; the summer and fall's political damage to the Bush regime in the process of being absorbed, analyzed and accounted.

So, in this time of slow-go, glacial progress, let's take account; reckon the politics, predict the future and extol the importance of Liberals (and Republicans) in the pursuit of Justice.