Anyone with siblings knows what it's like to stand in stupefied silence after receiving one of their sister's (or brother's) particularly cutting insults and then, in the quiet before falling asleep, compose 85 harsh comebacks. Of course, these nocturnal retorts are useless, since your sister has already paraded around the house, puffed up like Buzz Lightyear with her victory. This resembles the sorry state of affairs for Democrats these days, according to James Carville, bad-ass Clinton Advisor, Washington consultant and author. The right has co-opted issues from morality to job security, and all liberals seem to be able to do is stand sputtering in the background or bobbing their heads in agreement, when, in fact, they don't really agree; it's just that they've sort of forgotten why they disagree.

Carville's attempt to remedy this situation, "We're Right, They're Wrong," is an eminently readable set of bullet points for Democrats and liberal progressives who need what he terms a "kick in the ass." His verbal counter-strikes against rabid (and not so rabid) Republicans have clearly been honed by a few years of marriage to Mary Matalin. Quoting New York's Republican Congresswoman Susan Molinari, who complains that our welfare system "destroys families rather than saves them," Carville replies: "Let me give you a dose of their logic here. If you've got a common cold and you take aspirin, your headache may go away but you may still feel pretty lousy. A reasonable person would conclude that aspirin isn't very good at getting rid of the underlying causes of the cold. Right-wingers, however, would conclude that aspirin caused the cold in the first place."

Besides generous dollops of verbal BBQ sauce and frequent interjections of "ain't," Carville outlines lucid positions on every major issue from wage stagnation to health care to welfare to education, with enough references to statistics to be convincing. Recognizing the depths of our distrust of "liberals," he also cites plenty of card-carrying conservatives to back up his own arguments. With the ascent of Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan, and the rightward drift of the GOP, now is probably an excellent time for all good liberals to get their hands on Carville's rhetorical laser gun. A bleeding heart is just no excuse for a floppy tongue or weak knees.

--Stefanie Syman