This week, however, I am in somewhat of a quandary. The problem is not that I can't find a topic - it's that there are simply too many topics and events to discuss.

President George W. Bush has stepped up his efforts to convince Congress, the American people and the world that we should attack Iraq. His administration has issued a new defense plan that calls for a "distinctly American internationalism" in which we try desperately to maintain our fading hegemony by having enough bombs to annihilate anybody daring to think that they are equal to us.

Beyond the substantive issues, the temptation to make fun of Bush for his extraordinarily bad speech in Tennessee ("Fool me once, shame on uh É uh É me? You? Fool me twice, shame on É well, uh, you just can't fool me again.") was too hard to resist.

Labor issues are also rising to the forefront. Since Bush and the GOP have declared unions to be dangerous to Homeland Security, the recent disputes between the longshoremen and management of the West Coast Port Authority raises interesting questions.

The Democrats' fight to force Republican leaders in the House to consider their generic drug bill despite the objections of those in the Republican Party who receive large donations from drug companies drew my attention as well.

There are several more examples of presidential and Republican-led policies that have frustrated me enough in the last week to make me want to bang my head against the wall and send large donations to the Democratic party.

Does this make me little more then a partisan talking head? There are many who would argue that, by characterizing and responding to many of these issues in a way driven by partisan perceptions, I am hurting national discourse and simply encouraging a zero-sum game where party labels matter more then the issues. Instead of seeing the world through an admittedly liberal Democratic lens, they believe I should try to step back and consider every proposal independently.

What the idealists and independents don't realize is that party labels do matter because, at its core, the party is a group of people united to advance a certain agenda.

My weekly opposition to the Republican Party is not surface or petty. It arises out of fundamental disagreements with their platform. Research shows that a large percentage of the platform of the party in power becomes law. Important institutional roles, such as the Speaker of the House, are also directly related to party power.

Perhaps most importantly, most of the American people and almost all government officials view politics and government as a partisan activity. Thus, the daily governance of our country is significantly dominated by partisan concerns.

This is not to say that political parties dominate our entire system. Many ordinary governmental functions are performed everyday without concern for party labels. However, the reality of the situation is that political parties matter. For those of us who examine politics, the partisan connection is inescapable. I therefore remain an unashamedly pro-labor, anti-unilateralist Democrat who will continue to write on a topic that concerns me every week from this perspective.