with our party leaders. I should have known better than to expect any Democratic leader to say of course women should make their own health care decisions. Howard Dean used to say things like that, but tonight he did not.

Tonight hearing Howard Dean on PBS saying that recruiting those to run who are against abortion is okay as long as they are with us on other issues....was a huge disappointment. I do not agree with his stance at all. When he was DNC chairman he stayed out of primaries, but the committee leaders like Rahm and Schumer chose anti-choice candidates to run and funded their campaigns. But apparently he agreed with them.

The problem with that philosophy can readily be seen when you apply it to any policy for which Democrats are supposed to stand. There appears to be nothing left of our traditional value systems as a party.

I felt sad to hear Dean agree with that philosophy. It just added to the frustration I have felt this month with the party.

The women's rights issue has gone so far to the right that a woman in Florida was hospitalized against her will to keep the fetus alive. She was not allowed a second opinion.

Not a single Democrat anywhere spoke out about this outrage.

I have been around health care givers for a while as my husband recovers. I have been around many whose families are in crisis. I have seen our party with its majority fail to stand up for the real reforms they promised. I have seen the crises in ERs because so many are without health care.

They have allowed conservative Democrats to hijack the process of health care reform, they are seemingly clueless to the great needs of people right now.

When I hear of their plan to cut Medicare I feel sick inside. What I have seen and heard lately makes me sure we will lose it all in November if they follow through on those cuts. People are frustrated and angry.

Even the Democrats I trusted to stand up for the rights of women, the strengthening of health care safety nets like Medicare....are not coming through.

I am seeing the dismantling of public education under a Democratic administration. I am seeing billionaires being allowed to decide how schools will be reformed. They are turning schools over to companies who want to profit from them.

I am seeing our party actually refuse to support the Ohio Secretary of State who worked her butt off during the election to keep things honest. Jennifer Brunner was told by the DCCC chair Bob Menendez that she had not gotten enough money and that he was not afraid of her.

How dare he.

There is the new effort under Democrats to complete the privatization of Social Security that we fought so hard against when Bush was president. Did we fight just so the Democrats could do the deed themselves? They are already using the terminology of privatization.

I once posted the question here about when and why and how the Senate began to need that 60 votes to have a majority. It never has made sense to me unless they are doing it to keep a one-party type system.

I have been around more lately who are conservatives, fundamentalists, and see things from the right wing point of view. That's how it is here where we live. In normal times we mostly see those who are more liberal like we are, but that has not been possible lately.

I notice when a health care issue comes up, I don't even try to defend stuff anymore. Because the right winger can throw anything back at me and say that our party is doing it also.

I wish I had not watched NOW tonight. I guess it brought out the building grouchiness in me about how those of us who believe in standing up for Democratic values are being marginalized.