please welcome markos. [applause] >> good afternoon.ou may have seen yesterday morning on abc's "this week." i would like to apologize for not waterboarding visit cheney. you think it is a good idea, but the producers killed that idea. i made my name being a blind commentator and not just talking about republicans but problems within our own internal movement. i am going to talk a little bit about that and how i got into the game. i will talk about how things are changing. the story really has a positive ending, but the beginning is more harsh than it really is. i began in 2002. think back to 2002 when we were not allowed to criticize bush on anything. it was not a question of criticizing him on foreign policy, but on any issue. criticizing bush was showing weakness, division, and divided america, and terrorists one every time we criticize george bush. -- terrorists won. i started the daily kos because at the time no such thing existed. this is a the time when bill kline was the pinnacle of liberal flawed. -- of liberal thought. that wa

the reason we can is some of the stuff markos talked about. there are three reasons -- the first is because we want it. because we did everything we were supposed to do. we mobilized the resources to take back both chambers. we pulled out every stop and created unprecedented campaign from the outside to let barack obama president in a historic election. we won. we played by the rules and we got the small donors and went door-to-door. yet we are still facing some very insurmountable problems. that means it's going to take more than one election. more than democratic party controlling all of the chamber's in order to fix our democracy. we also know that it is time because we fought close to obama for the health care bill that passed. that's a real victory. but what we learned from that is that it is fighting to and mail. it is fighting to and nail. -- it is fighting tooth and nail. it is getting people out in the cities and towns every week to pass a bill. members kept coming back week after week. three months became 6 and 6 became 9 and kept fi

the reason we can is some of the stuff markos talked about. there are three reasons -- the first is because we want it. because we did everything we were supposed to do. we mobilized the resources to take back both chambers. we pulled out every stop and created unprecedented campaign fromhe outside to let barack obama president in a historic election. we won. we played by the rules and we got the small donors and went door-to-door. yet we are still facing some very insurmountable problems. that means it's going to take more than one election. more than democratic party controlling all of the chamber's in order to fix our democracy. we also know that it is time because we fought close to obama for the health care bill that passed. that's a real victory. but what we learned from that is that it is fighting to and mail. it is fighting to and nail. -- it is fighting tooth and nail. it is getting people out in the cities and towns every week to pass a bill. members kept coming back week after week. three months became 6 and 6 became 9 and kept figh

we're thrilled to have with us ilyse hogue and markos moulitsas.al community blog in the country. i'm sure very few of us are not familiar with it. he will soon be the author of his third book, due out in september called "the american taliban -- how war, sex, sin and power bind g hottest and the radical right. -- bind jihaddists and the radical right per "is a columnist, author and critical voice for the progressive movement, reaching llions of folks every day. pleaseelcome markos. [applause] >> it that afternoon. -- good afternoon. you may have seen me yesterday morning on "abc's this week." i would like to apologize for not water boarding liz cheney. you think it's a good idea, i think it's a good idea, but the producer nixed the idea. i made my name being a blunt commentator, not just talking about republicans, conservatives, but also talking about problems within our own internal movement. i want to talk a little bit about that and a little bit about how i got into this game and how things are changing. the story really is -- it is a positive