While Karl Rove was dancing his Dance Macabre at the National Correspondents' Dinner (see Lorraine's diary on Culture Kitchen), his Swift Boat Liars were firing up their attack machine and aiming for one of the progressive grassroot's top candidates. Congressman Jerry McNerney came up from behind to defeat a corrupt Republican incumbent largely because the progressive grassroots, including Democracy for New York City (even though he's in California!), backed him heavily. And, as you would expect from a man who resigned from West Point to protest the Vietnam war and who became an engineer to design wind turbines, Congressman McNerney has taken a real leadership role in the fight to get our troops out of the Iraq quagmire and to build an alternative energy infrastructure to help mitigate global warming. Congressman McNerney has already started to live up to the promise we all saw in him.

So now that he is under attack, I hope we can back him up against Karl Rove's jive. This comes from McNerney's campaign:

Yesterday, our campaign got hit with a one-two punch. First, a scandalous House hearing unearthed a secret document from a deputy of Karl Rove revealing that the GOP “architect” is targeting me as #3 on his political hit list.

Then, the National Republican Congressional Committee carried out Rove’s hit yesterday with “The Real Jerry McNerney” -– launching a slick Swift Boat-style web site that smears my record of service to you in Congress. The NRCC plans to promote this deception site by spamming voters in our district with over 100,000 e-mails.

Make no mistake. I will respond to this malicious assault on my character and my record. But, I can’t fight back without your help. To stop the right-wing political hacks plotting to kill our movement before it changes Washington, I need your support today...

If the progressive grassroots want to remain a strong voice in politics, we need to stand up for those Congressional Reps who actually listen to us and keep their promises to us. Jerry McNerney not only lives his values in the way few of us can manage, but he has already demonstrated he intends to keep the promises he made to us. I have Congressman McNerney on my 2008 House Race Act Blue Page (bottom of the list...didn't realize when I made it that he would be targeted so strongly!). Please donate a little to show Karl Rove we don't like the stink of his jive.