This column is dedicated to the idea that Democrats can learn to use talking points as effectively as Republicans often do. This idea annoys many who feel that Democrats using talking points is degrading, and stoops to Republican tactics; a position I don't agree with, but still respect. But sometimes even I have to take Democrats to task for not backing up such talking points with action, or at the very least a plan of action.

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Netizens, fellow bloggers, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, Members of Congress, Supreme Court Justices, and all Americans... I am proud to stand before you and say... the state of the weblog is strong!

Blogging, for instance, means you can put your own comments out there before President Bush gives his final State of the Union speech next Monday. This is a good thing for our blogosphere!

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John Edwards today came out strongly in support of Chris Dodd's fight against Harry Reid in the Senate over giving telecommunications companies immunity for breaking the wiretapping laws. To be fair, Dodd is the one leading on the issue, but he has dropped out of the race for president, so he deserves the leadership honors on the issue. But among the three leading candidates for the Democratic nomination, only Edwards is even speaking about the issue. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as of this writing, don't have any press releases up on their web pages on the issue, one way or the other. Both of them are out on the campaign trail rather than in the Senate to cast votes on the issue.

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So. The question is: will Hillary Clinton and/or Barack Obama stand up for Dodd? Will they filibuster right alongside him? Will they show leadership within their own party (all the players except Bush in this fight are Democrats)? Or will they wait until they see which way the political winds are blowing and sneak in during the last minutes of a roll call to cast a "safe" vote? Hillary? Do you support telecom immunity for illegally wiretapping American citizens? How about you, Barack? Do you support this? You are both still in the Senate.

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While predicting the future of the Democratic Party is usually a futile exercise due to the inherent "herding cats" nature of the party, predicting the future of the Republican Party is usually pretty easy to do. So easy, it's boring. Which is why I normally shy away from the subject.

But 2008 is going to be a watershed year for the Republican Party, because they seem to be having their own set of factionalist problems. Which means the fortunes of the GOP will be a lot more interesting than usual next year.

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For those of you who have been reading this column long enough, you may remember a fun set of columns (Part 1 and Part 2) I wrote last year, giving my picks for the annual tongue-in-cheek awards handed out by the McLaughlin Group television show.

Because I had so much fun doing it last year, I present for your amusement, agreement, and/or rage my selections for this year's awards. This is a two-week event, so check back here next Friday for Part 2.

As always when this column hands out awards, our eminent jury consists of me, my wife, and our cat (who breaks ties with her vote). So I wouldn't take it too seriously.

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It's been a busy week, so forgive me if I don't get to everything today. Part of the reason is the absolute congressional snowstorm of bills moving on the Hill both this week and next, as Congress prepares to scarper off on yet another extended vacation.

I'll do a better tally of all these last-minute efforts when the dust settles next week, I promise. But for now, I'd like to pause for a minute to reflect on the past year of Democratic majority rule in Congress. Putting aside legislative issues, and even putting aside the war for the moment, one thing many partisan Democrats were hoping for this year was some scalps nailed to the wall.

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Eileen Sullivan of the Associated Press wrote a shocking story this week, to which little attention is being paid. That's a shame, because it details how the effort to fight "terrorism" in America is being morphed into something else entirely. Federal dollars which are supposed to go to anti-terrorism are being used by the states pretty much any way they feel. The Bush administration gave the money to the states with no guidelines as to how to spend it, so it's really not even the states' fault that they decided to use the money how they saw fit.

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A United States Ministry of Truth spokesman proudly unveiled the new official definition of "privacy" today, on the heels of their successful campaign to redefine "torture." The new meaning of the word "privacy" will now be (according to MiniTru): "the secure feeling citizens get by knowing that their government is collecting and protecting their personal data." Old definitions of privacy will no longer be operative.

The MiniTru spokesman was quite enthusiastic about the definition rollout. "For generations Americans have been burdened by the responsibility of guarding their own privacy," he said. "This was too great a task for the public to adequately control, so the logical answer was to have the government take over this onerous work, to better serve each citizen's private life. No longer will Americans have to worry about their own privacy, because now Big Brother will take care of it for them."

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Senator Chris Dodd doesn't get a lot of press attention even though he's running for the Democratic nomination for president. This may be about to change, as Senator Dodd has just announced he is putting a "hold" on the FISA bill being considered by various Senate committees.

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