Looking back. Looking forward.

Two recommendations:

• Chris Bowers has a harsh but fundamentally correct assessment of the blogosphere's actions to the Alito confirmation: it was more reactive then proactive.

• Georgia10 lays out a plan for being more proactive on the Domestic Spying scandal.

Many have criticized the leadership for not doing much on Alito until the last week. But most of us didn't do all that much either. Chris Bowers points out that he wrote several posts leading up to the confirmation hearings, most of which garnered only a trickle of responses. It wasn't until John Kerry signalled his plan to push for a fillibuster that the blogosphere's campaign for the same really took off. So was the failure to stop Alito really just a failure of leadership?

We kept waiting for the signal to start lobbying and the signal only came in the final hour. But we shouldn't wait for that signal if we have reason to believe it won't be coming.

What does this mean for the Domestic Spying scandal?

It means start calling your legislators now! If you made 1 call day against Alito then you should make the same number of calls now. If you made 20 calls a day against Alito then you should make the same number of calls now.

We also need a whip count. We had this during Alito with the count of who was going to vote for/against Alito and who was going to vote for/against cloture. We need a similar whip count for this scandal. Georgia10 has identified the perfect vehicle for this count: support for a special prosecutor.

So call your Senators. Call your Representative. Tell them that you want a special prosecutor and you want them to lead the call for the same. You want them to work behind the scenes and in front of the camera to push for this. Pull out all the stops.

No more flying by the seat of your pants!

Update: I've started a whip count diary on dKos for tracking who has come out in support of a special prosecutor. Please check it out and help us fill in the blanks.