The Democrats Get Ready For '08

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

2008 Campaign Underway

It may be more than three and a half years until the next presidential election, but the Democratic National Committee (search) is already sending staff and money to some states, to get ready. It's the first time Democrats have put such resources on the ground so early in a White House race according to DNC Chairman Howard Dean (search).

At a meeting this past week, Dean and state party chairs decided to dispatch a half-million dollars to pay campaign organizers in North Dakota, Missouri, North Carolina and West Virginia — four states that voted Republican in 2004. Dean hopes organizers will build a grassroots network. In a letter to supporters, he says, "You mandated a party built from the ground up, and that's exactly what we're going to do."

Unfair to Fair

The liberal media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (search), or FAIR, is denouncing, of all people, CNN President Jonathan Klein (search) for what it calls "skewed" and "insulting" comments. In an interview with PBS' Charlie Rose three weeks ago, Klein called FOX News Channel's audience "mostly angry white men [who] ... tend to be rabid." But that's not what FAIR, which dislikes Fox, is objecting to.

Klein then said a liberal, progressive TV network would never be as successful as Fox because "[progressives] don't get too worked up about anything. And they're pretty morally relativistic."

FAIR calls that complete nonsense, insisting, "progressives get plenty worked up." After all, it says, look at all the people who protested against the war in Iraq, and who went to see Michael Moore's anti-Bush documentary "Fahrentheit 9-11."

Leiberman Left Without Benefits

The Maryland Department of Labor has revoked unemployment benefits from Sinclair Broadcasting Group's former Washington bureau chief, Jon Leiberman — who was fired nearly six months ago for saying his company's plan to broadcast a program based on an anti-John Kerry documentary was "biased political propaganda."

According to Broadcasting and Cable magazine, the labor department determined Leiberman violated company policy by speaking to the press about company business, and his actions "constitute[d] gross misconduct."

Troops Directed To Find New Sponsors

The Boy Scouts of America (search) has directed troops across the country that are sponsored by public schools or other government entities to find new, private sponsors. This after the ACLU complained that the Boy Scouts' oath with its promise to "do my duty to God and my country," amounts to a religious endorsement. And that, the ACLU insists, could trample on the rights of those who want to be a Boy Scout, but don't believe in God.

The Boy Scouts of America, quoted by the St. Louis Post Dispatch, says the ACLU's stance, "defies common sense," but says it would rather issue the directive, than face a lawsuit from the ACLU.

— FOX News' Michael Levine contributed to this report