Summary of the DLC's convention: Is this the "positive" agenda promised by their new chairman Vilsack?

From The New York Times by Raymond Hernandez, 7/26/05.

• Hillary sharply criticized Republicans' fiscal policies (and offered nothing in it's place).
• Mark Warner said "Today's Washington fiscal conservative is someone who thinks that deficits can go on forever and that you can make the cost of the war go away simply by moving them off the balance sheet."
• Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana accused the Bush administration of "false bravado" and "incompetence" in the way it handled the war in Iraq and its aftermath. "It's obvious that they had no plan for winning the peace."
• Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, the new chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, kicked off his promise for a new positive agenda by criticizing the administration for "not sharing with us the true reasons for going to war or the true price we would have to pay to continue the war."

Then in an apparent moment of sudden reflection of his empty-sounding ,promise, Mr. Vilsack made a shart U-turn saying "We can't afford to be anti-, against everything. America is waiting for us. They are desperate to know what we are for." (translation: I wish we had a clue as to what to do to stop this damn losing streak!)

All of this leads to

The quote of the week

"The fact that the centrist organization of the Democrat Party would anoint Hillary Clinton anything, exemplifies just how far left the Democrats have gone."

Tracey Schmitt,
spokeswoman for the RNC