I felt like there should have been more coverage of the March for Women’s Lives, but this, this, this and this tell what a big story it was. And this, on the large number of college-aged women present, and their potential influence in November, is just plain great news. (I think, as usual, you have to be registered to get a few of those links. Sorry about that.)

Um…

In one of the early (now archived) posts in this blog, I lamented the fact that during the last couple of decades, Republicans seem to have successfully framed the political “left” as universally “secular,” as in “the Religious Right and the Secular Left.” It’s a very neat dichotomy, keeping with the simplistic either-or-isms supplied by the Bush White House and conservative Republicans in order to reduce the amount of time citizens spend thinking for themselves. It also fits nicely into the “two Americas” paradigm pundits are using to frame the upcoming election. And it renders a whole spectrum of religious thought and political activity completely invisible.

I realize, though, that we can’t give Republicans all the credit for creating this illusion. The press likes the storyline. It’s easy to write about. It doesn’t require much journalism, since they can simply refer to GOP talking points. It has built-in tension and conflict, with identifiable good guys and bad guys (the good guys being the God-fearing, church-going families of the Right). As just one example of the media’s deep commitment to this story, see the new Nicholas Kristoff editorial, “Hug An Evangelical,” in which he pleads for more civility toward the right from the “secular left.” Acknowledging the existence of a body of religious people whose politics are well left of the “religious right” muddies up the story.

Journalists of this “so-called Liberal Media” (to borrow a phrase from Eric Alterman’s blog and his terrific book What Liberal Media?) showed us how skillfully and influentially they can spin a narrative when they turned on Al Gore in 2000 (see the last few chapters of the aforementioned What Liberal Media? for Alterman’s analysis of the press’ role in the outcome of the election; I don’t have my copy, so I can’t refer to specific pages). Now we’re starting to see how they’re going to rewrite John Kerry: by relentlessly pursuing his “flip flops” while giving the President a virtual pass, challenging the validity of his Vietnam medals (in order to level the playing field with an incumbent who avoided service?), and - particularly relevant to this discussion - by spinning his deeply held Catholicism as a renegade practice, at odds with church leaders. Amy Sullivan has been tracking this particular storyline, here and here, and will probably continue to pursue it.

Meanwhile, I continue to hope and pray that progressive Christians shows up at the polls in droves this November, and that we turn out to be a pretty interesting story afterall.

I hope to spend a little more time on this later - time that I don’t have right now - but for the past few days, the folks over at The Village Gate site have been hosting a thoughtful and sometimes heated discussion about the role of the Christian Left in progressive politics.

It’s Astronomy Day! Why not take a moment to visit Save the Hubble and sign their petition. Then drop in on the International Dark-Sky Association and learn a bit about fighting light pollution! (Look here if you wonder what difference it makes.)

“…almost 20 percent of the billions of American taxpayers dollars being spent to rebuild Iraq is being lost to corruption.” Maybe that’s one of the reasons the Administration excluded the cost of Iraq from of the 2005 record-deficit budget; maybe they were waiting for an estimation of the bribery factor? Well, I’ve been waiting for a good time to remind folks about this underplayed story, and today is as good as any!

“Whatever the explanation, these polls are neither as dismaying (to Democrats) nor as encouraging (to Republicans) as they appear. In fact, given the margin of error in this week’s surveys — it hovers between 3 percent and 3.5 percent — the only safe conclusion is that the race is a dead heat. At least until the next round of polls is released.” That’s the conclusion of Ryan Lizza’s editorial today in the NY Times. (For those who think “Marge Innovera” really is the Car Talk statistician, I’ll once again suggest Paul Waldman’s “Polling Primer“) But Joshua Marshall, also editorializing in the Times today, concludes: “Mr. Kerry is far more likely to win if he has a plan to show how he — and thus the American people — can succeed rather than simply showing how President Bush — and thus they — have failed.”

John Zogby yesterday: “I think this election is John Kerry’s to lose. Which is not to say that he can’t rise to the occasion.” Here’s the transcript of his online “chat” about polling, at the Washington Post site. And here’s columnist Richard Cohen’s take on how Kerry is managing to “rise to the occasion” so far. Basically, by not saying anything. Kerry has money — not as much as Bush, but more than we expected he’d have at this point. He’s got an “energized base.” He’s got a compelling personal history. He’s got a vocabulary… But he’s not doing a very good job of telling us how he will be different. This is starting to scare me.

We’ve come to expect stick-in-your-eye politics from an administration that lost the popular vote, and proceeded to enact the most pro-business, anti-civil liberties legislative agenda in half a century. They’ve never encountered a conflict of interest they couldn’t mock. They used the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday to appoint a segregationist to federal appeals court… So guess how they’re spending Earth Day?

Strong bipartisan campaigns are underway in California and Maryland to decertify Diebold electronic voting systems before the November elections, and Ohio has delayed a statewide purchase of the systems. (For a little context, see my 4/13 posting.)