Babs Blasts Bush

Barbra Sreisand may have ended her career as a concert performer, but she's not finished dispensing her political wisdom.

The star of Funny Girl and Yentl is trying to rally congressional Democrats out of their doldrums, according to the Capitol Hill journal Roll Call.

"What has happened to the Democrats since the November election? Some of you seem paralyzed, demoralized and depressed, " she wrote in a memo sent off to party leaders last week.

Streisand said it's time for Democrats to stop playing nice and start fighting back against the GOP. "You don't have to be ruthless like the Republicans, just be strong."

The liberal activist and longtime Democratic fund-raiser also hammered President Bush, charging he "stole the presidency through family ties, arrogance and intimidation, employing Republican operatives to exercise the tactics of voter fraud by disenfranchising thousands of blacks, elderly Jews and other minorities."

She said Mr. Bush was not only "poisoning our air and water by withdrawing his promise to enforce emissions standards and arsenic regulations, but he's poisoning our political system as well. … As we have learned in the past weeks, we cannot trust George W. Bush."

Streisand also offered a defense of her friend, former President Clinton, saying his notorious last-minute pardons "have no impact on the health and welfare of the American people."

The memo, entitled Nice Guys Finish Last or Where Do We Go From Here: A Case for the Democrats, was signed simply "Barbra."

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