Dem's Fighting Back - David Sirota

At a little before 6 each morning, a wiry, 27-year-old political operative fires up his computer in his Washington, D.C., apartment. While other Democratic spinners are still in bed, dreaming about their next power breakfast, stubble-faced, bleary-eyed David Sirota is already at the keyboard, hacking out a daily barrage of anti-Bush media clips, commentary and snappy quotes.

SIROTA’S E-MAILS—SENT to the capital’s journalists and political pros—tend to portray President Bush as a bullying huckster (Sirota branded the illegal leak of a CIA agent’s name “Intimigate”). But they occasionally cause the administration genuine headaches. One Sirota blast last month diverted Colin Powell from an exhaustive round of talks at the United Nations. Working on a tip from an obscure Australian Web site, Sirota unearthed an embarrassing comment the secretary of State made two years ago. In Cairo, Powell had said that Iraq posed no threat to its neighbors, and possessed no “significant capability” in weapons of mass destruction. Reporters pounced. “It was early in the administration,” Powell sheepishly explained.