I'm in Washington DC for the Winter Meeting of the Democratic National Committee to witness "regime change" within our party - the departure of Terry McAuliffe and the arrival of Howard Dean.

The enthusiasm for Dean within the DNC is tremendous. Dean is making the rounds of the various subgroups and caucuses. He is introduced with enthusiastic praise. His brief remarks generate standing ovations. All of the delegates want to shake his hand and bend his ear.

On Thursday, Dean's remarks to the Association of State Democratic Chairs were noteworthy. He repeated his determination to build a 50-state party and promised to direct DNC funds to the states. But he also emphasized the obligation of state parties to use those funds to produce measurable results. He promised to personally monitor the performance of state parties.

Dean also spoke to the Ethnic Caucus, comprised of Democrats of European and Meditteranean descent. He asked the Caucus to help the DNC frame its message on family values to help the Democratic Party connect with voters whose greatest concern are their families. Naturally, he cited Lakoff's work as must-reading for all Democrats.

Last night was the Tribute to Terry McAuliffe at the beautiful National Building Museum. There were about 1,000 people there, including DNC delegates, staffers, and wellwishers.

If I had to choose a single word to describe the event, I'd describe it as "bittersweet." Obviously McAuliffe has much to be proud of in terms of finances and technology:

• In 2004 alone, the DNC raised $360 million - compared to $284 for the RNC.
• From 2/01 to 2/05 - McAuliffe's 4-year term - the DNC raised $535 million, far more than any previous DNC term
• In 2002, McAuliffe raised the money to buy the Democratic HQ building and rebuilt it with in-house radio and TV studios
• McAuliffe grew the DNC's small-donor base from only 400,000 to 2.7 million
• McAuliffe grew the DNC's e-mail list from 70,000 to 4 million

As party chairman, McAuliffe united the many factions of the party, helping John Kerry get more votes than any candidate in history - except W.

As a manager, McAuliffe earned the genuine affection of DNC staff through his enthusiasm and willingness to listen to their concerns.

But despite these impressive accomplishments, under McAuliffe's tenure the Democrats lost control of the Senate, fell further behind in the House, and allowed the Presidency to be stolen twice in a row.

How did that happen?

Listening to the speeches here, it would be impossible to find out - because our Democratic leaders refuse to speak the truth about the gang of neofascist criminals who are running the Republican Party.

Stolen Election 2000 is never mentioned. Interestingly, Bill Clinton came the closest in his remarks last night when he declared that we won in 2000 - only not by enough to keep the election out of the Supreme Court. But he failed to take the next step - declaring that the Supreme Court's partisan 5-4 decision throwing out 175,000 never-counted ballots was illegal and illegitimate.

Imagine what would have happened if President Clinton had denounced the Republican efforts to stop the recount during November and December of 2000 - I believe Al Gore or John Kerry would be sitting in the White House today.

September 11 is never mentioned either. Yesterday we learned the Bush administration had 52 warnings about Al Qaeda threats against US airlines. Yet the Bush administration insists it "had no warnings." Imagine what would have happened if Congressional Democrats had held George W. Bush personally accountable for ignoring all of the pre-911 warnings? This, too, would have put John Kerry in the White House.

Iraq is never mentioned either - except to praise our troops. A few weeks ago the White House quietly admitted there were no WMD's in Iraq. Imagine what would happen if the Democratic Party joined Democrats.com in calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush for lying about war?

In speech after speech, Democrats talk hopefully about the future. They have been brainwashed by the Washington media into believing it is a losing strategy to talk critically about the past - or to criticize George W. Bush, even though his latest AP approval rating is -9% (45%-54%) even after the blindly glowing coverage of his inauguration and State of the Union.

If the Democratic Party continues to turn the other cheek to George Bush and the Republican Party, we will continue to lose - no matter how much money we raise.