Brace yourselves. As the Democrats get closer to taking Congress, the Republicans are rearming and reactivating their 90’s attack machine. There will be attacks and smears often created whole cloth from nothing. Thankfully, Congress won’t spend millions investigating these rumors, but it’s going to be annoying and ugly. Left-wing blogs call this the “Clinton rules of journalism.” Republicans and their operatives spent years just throwing imagined misdeeds and overblown garbage at the wall. Eventually, they got one to stick, and it gave them a shot at the 2000 election.

Nancy Pelosi gets the pleasure of being the next Bill Clinton, it seems. So far, I count three imagined storylines and scandals that Republicans have tried to push. They’re clearly trying to build a storyline around Pelosi, attempting to undermine her ability to govern before she’s even taken the job. So far nothing is sticking, but then nothing has involved sex or money. First, there was the whole Hoyer/Murtha silliness. Then we’ve had the fun and slowly ending Hastings/Harman faux controversy. Neither story was sexy, but were part of this story building: can Pelosi lead? They’ve tried silly traditional political attacks, but so far they’ve been easily debunked.

It is ridiculous that this is what we spend so much time on these days. Fake scandals and personal attacks instead of meaningful reporting and debate. We should want more. We need more. We also can ask for more. Local news offered less than 2 minutes worth of coverage to election news each night. That’s awful.

I wish I could think of a way to bring together the best political reporting around the web and put it together in a compelling and consumable format. Aggregation is what people need, the filter to help them find the stories they should focus on. None of the automated solutions seem to work all that well. Memeorandum is the closest I’ve seen and even that isn’t really right.

Now that the Democrats have taken control of the House and Senate, their leadership needs to pause before celebration.

I won’t argue that this change of power isn’t a good thing; it is a fantastic thing. Bush, and his attack on civil rights, will at least get more than a cursory evaluation. The shady dealings of the executive branch will finally see a spot light and maybe some of the secrecy of the administration will be lifted. The blindfolded driver of the Iraq war has quit and maybe someone will be able to steer the car out of the ditch. There in lies the rub.

I think it is quite clear this election was a referendum on the Iraq war. The voters spoke…Iraq is very unpopular. The problem is that the Democrats are now in control of the Iraq conflict…except they aren’t. Bush is still Commander in Chief and he believes in the war. Iraq is a mess of sectarian violence with multiple sides and multiple agendas. We can’t pull out without the whole thing erupting and we can’t stay without a huge cost in money and lives. The Dems have two years to “fix” Iraq. I’m not sure it is possible at this point, and certainly not without committing MORE troops to the conflict.

Domestically, Americans still have a fear of terrorism. The Bush administration has used the threat of terrorist attacks in the US as a powerful motivator to convince Americans to back the war. Even mentions of scaling back the War in Iraq yield accusations of being “soft on terror.” I fear that one domestic terrorism incident, something that is all too likely to occur eventually, regardless of Iraq war, will become a backlash against the Democrats in power, resulting in huge losses in Congress and worse, huges losses of civil liberties.

Finally with all the calls of “bipartisanship” I’ve heard over the last few days, I can’t help but laugh. Days ago there were accusations and name calling from both sides. Today, everyone just wants to get along. The problem for the Democratic leadership is that most of the Republicans who were replaced were moderate, left leaning Republicans. Some who replaced them were more conservative, right leaning Democrats…the so called “Blue Dog” Democrats. While the leadership may have the majority by the numbers, they may find that they don’t have the votes when push comes to shove. Not to mention that President Bush still has the golden power of veto.

These are interesting times and I hope, for the sake of our civil liberties, the Democrats are able to fulfill their agenda. I also hope that for the sake of bipartisanship and keeping a hold of Congress, they don’t fall in line behind President’s simple minded view of security and the world.

The Democrats need to take action. I just fear that there is no action that won’t spell disaster. I also hope that I’m just being pessimistic. Fortunately, world events change moment by moment. Tomorrow will likely bring some new event or issue that will be the hot button topic for the next election.