I have two new goals for the Give Up blog.

If you remember, the first goal of this blog was to try to explain some of the inevitablity of progressive politics, as people who experienced conservative policy will ultimately be unhappy with it. I think the most recent election was a good example of this.

There are two goals I'm thinking we should be talking about now, besides our usual policy of talking about science and interesting things to the reality-based community.

The first, is that we really have to emphasize that Iraq is a civil war as Colin Powell now agrees. This is not just an issue of semantics. The acknowledgement of civil war is the first step in helping our leadership realize we have no business being in Iraq. It is part of the reason that Bush is unwilling to admit this is a civil war. The remaining justifications for Iraq fall away, and no one in their right mind thinks it's a good idea to put our soldiers in between warring religious factions involved in a thousand year old fight over who should be the rightful successor to the prophet Mohammed.

The second, is to emphasize the importance of not letting Republicans off the hook for the disaster they've created. To start with, can anyone name a single policy of this administration that's been anything resembling a resounding success? Can anyone honestly say, such as with Lyndon Johnson, that if it hadn't been for disastrous foreign war this president would have been anything but a embarrassing domestic failure as well? What can the Republican congress and president point to and be proud of?

Also note the recent posthumous ass-kissing of Milton Friedman in every major newspaper as an example of why this fight is important. Somehow, whether it's just because no one can criticize a dead guy, or because it's important to try to establish a false legacy shortly after an individual's death, it's somehow become a fact of life that Milton Friedman was right about everything. Somehow, Clinton's entire administration, a rejection of the majority of Friedman's ideas with the exception of Federal Reserve monetary policy, has been ignored, and a man who believed that the great depression was caused by the Fed and not the total absence of regulation of the markets and banking, that there should be no public schools, no FDA, no licensing of doctors and lawyers, is being applauded by even liberal papers as something of a visionary. You ask me, even a broken clock is right twice a day, that's how I explain that guy's legacy, not some great genius of economics (a oxymoron if there ever was one, just look at Posner).

This is why it's my dream that when this presidency is in its last day, and president Bush is driving down Pennsylvania avenue for the last time, or whatever way he's going to flee DC, the roads will be lined with people united with a single message. I realize that sounds impossible, because the free Mumia jackasses, and anarchist jackasses, and puppet-wielding jackasses will all be there, but hey, a scientist can dream right?

Wouldn't it be a beautiful sight? 500k+ people lining the streets of D.C. with a sign that said one thing? An immediate attack on the legacy of a president who has nearly destroyed this country with his incompetence is critical, because you know how once a presidency is over, the fight to define the legacy will immediately be engaged by conservatives who will try to whitewash this disaster, just like they whitewashed Reagan's.

Wouldn't it be amazing, if just for one day, all liberals could get together united behind a single message? And, that message would be Worst President Ever.

Let's get this legacy defined from the outset.

**Update** I'm trying to lead a little discussion about this over on Kos. It seems pretty well received.