It's time to bury the "Secret agent Kerry has gone undercover to route out the election evil-doers" thing once and for all. His total disavowal of his own statements to Mark Crispin Miller that he, too, thinks that election fraud took place in 2004 should put the kibosh on all of your favorite fantasies about Kerry - and a boat-load of other official Democrats as well.

Admittedly, Harry Reid tantalizes us with his Rule 21 and John Conyers is a saint who waits night after night in the congressional pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin of Reform to appear.

But.......I am not sure we have even begun to grok what holds the vast bulk of official Democrats so firmly in place. So willing to watch crimes take place and corruption grow.

Is there some sort of uber-agreement with the Republicans that official Democratic actions will be only of the most ineffective variety. For what ultimate purpose? This possibility is too dark and requires an almost comic-book level of secret, evil collusion to be the most likely cause. We're discussing our poor, hapless Democrats here, after all.

More likely, Democratic paralysis stems from the simple fact that there has been no-one in D.C. like you or me for decades. People with the bad taste to eat McChickens and drive Fords. People with jobs that may require the occasional wearing of rubber gloves. We, the inhabitants of "Dumbassistan" (thought to be large and bear-like), we haven't been spotted there in years.

And look at what the Republicans have managed! By the application of constant heat to a couple of wedge issues thought previously to be just the useless by-products of debate, they have created enough smoke to keep us dependably quarried inside the forest of Dumbassistan. A majority of us have even been persuaded to vote the park rangers of D.C. ever-increasing amounts of well, everything (all in the hope that the noxious smoke will somehow clear and the salt-lick of $1.29 gasoline will be placed back out under the maple trees.

And we want the ones called Democrats to throw out that miraculous wildlife management plan and speak clearly and forthrightly? To confirm to us all the things we suspect have gone terribly wrong? Which could only get us all hotted up and lead us to make ominous, threatening noises and movements?

I think the Republicans' bold moves towards full-tilt, Soviet-style corruption leave the official Democrats of D.C. with only 2 options: 1) get along (and get paid!) by offering up only the weakest opposition imaginable when faced with the super-charged corruption of the Republican majority or 2) begin to speak out loud about the 1001 ways that Democracy is being removed from everyone without the good sense to be born into wealth .

Option 1 is easy and runs itself. Option 2 involves using prickly new words, each of which the verbal equivalent of an Improvised Explosive Device. And the effect of this drastic and new kind of Democratic speech on the vast populace of Dumbassistan, would be predictable in scope - if a little vague in detail .

After all, loose lips might unintentionally bring the wall around those Americans above a certain income level into too stark a relief. Accidents of meaning could make it all too clear that certain Americans no longer live in Dumbassistan - even if they are right next door. That within this other American community no one's job gets sent to Viet Nam. That disbursements from the U.S. Treasury simply arrive in the mail. That the beautiful teens inside the gates are never tempted into the maw of Operation Iraqi Freedom just to scrounge up dull and featureless commodities like money-for-college or health-care-benefits.

For cryin' out loud! Once the bears of Dumbassistan are roused and charge the Park Headquarters in D.C., will they be in a mood to differentiate between the Rococo mansions displaying a gilded, almost 19th century vulgarity and the sleek, glassy Mies-ian ones with the ironic furniture from the 1970's?

The corruption is that bad. Start speaking up in D.C. and how bad might the reaction be in Dumbassistan?

How discerning is an angry bear?