Liberals Find Their Voice

And the mainstream media takes notice.

Common Dreams/USAToday -- After decades of being shushed and shooed aside by centrist Democrats who feared the party's left-wing image was turning off voters, liberals have kicked their way out of the political closet. They are loud. They are angry. And they've got a whole new attitude.

"We have been too nice. We have been too polite," says Ann Lewis, a veteran strategist with the Democratic National Committee, where the official party weblog is called "Kicking Ass."

The sudden emergence of an outspoken left wing may be the most surprising political development of the year. Until recently, liberalism could not have been more out of vogue. But in the six months since Bush appeared under a "Mission Accomplished" banner on a Navy aircraft carrier, the political dynamic has changed.

"The conservative right has out-organized, out-researched, out-written and out-talked the liberals to the point where they're almost intimidated into silence," says former senator George McGovern.

Al Franken is so angry about Bush that he's taking a detour from his career as a comedian. "I may do a radio show," the funnyman-turned-polemicist says. He promises he'll be as outspoken as the conservative talk jocks: "My contribution to the civility of the dialogue has been to get down and say, 'You're lying, and we're going to call you on it.' "

"Republicans had better worry," says Paul Weyrich, a veteran conservative organizer. "Angry people are motivated to get out to vote. If they can channel that anger into something constructive, they can literally upset the presidency."