Two Friends of the Blog are engaged in an exchange elsewhere about how Democrats should best respond to President Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq. And the exchange between Chad "The Left" Shue and Stilwell --among my favorite bloggers, commenters and correspondents -- was spurred by a Seattle Times editorial.

The Times editorial ran Friday. It was headlined, "Step up, Democrats, the war is waiting."

Democrats in Washington's congressional delegation are crystal clear about their frustrations with President Bush's dismaying speech announcing more of the same in Iraq. They need to bring the same clarity to legislative efforts to move the country away from war.

Political arm-waving and high-profile votes on nonbinding resolutions and other artfully worded parliamentary expressions of opposition are worthless. They do not inform the public about the nature of the president's military escalations, and more importantly they do nothing to turn off the flow of dollars that keep the administration's disastrous mission alive.

At the Northwest Progressive Institute Official Blog, Stilwell saw the editorial as a hypocritical jab at Democrats.

The attack poodles at The Seattle Times foul their kennel with a bizarre piece of Democrat-bashing in this editorial.

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This is Bush's war. The Times knows that, and they endorsed Reichert and McGavick anyhow.

At a certain point, publications destroy their own credibility with their transparent bias, and dare we say it, partisanship. I'm not quite certain where this leaves The Seattle Times, besides twisted into pretzels most of the time.

At Washblog, Shue said he thinks Stilwell is trying to let Democrats off the hook and says the debate is "an interesting case of how Democrats and Progressives seem to keep getting our messages crossed."

It's almost as if Stilwell is setting up an escape clause for Democrats who do not want to confront the task before them.

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Progressives should not be divided over this issue. Rather, we should be leading the charge to help our newly elected majority do the job they were sent there to do.

There are interesting comments at both posts if you're interested in seeing how Democrats are split on how the new Democratic majority should respond to Bush.

SIDEBAR: Stilwell has been writing more recently at the NPI blog, which has been a real good thing for the blog and made it a more interesting read. (Why is it the "Northwest Progressive Institute Official Blog"? Is there a proliferation of unofficial NPI sites?)

I also see that my friends at the PI are marketing to the blog's liberal readership, with an ad that says, "Support a two-newspaper town." I'm not sure I've seen any local papers advertise on independent blogs before. Interesting development.