Here’s an important to the Utah Democrats: Watch your back. You’ve got a right winger in your midst.

We’ve complained about the many times that Representative Jim Matheson has joined the Republicans to promote the right wing agenda. In response, we’ve had a couple of sheepish Democrats from Utah write in and ask if we’re not being too hard on good ole Congressman Matheson. Golly, they’ve said. We know that Representative Matheson votes with the Republicans a lot, but at least he’s a Democrat!

It’s enough to make me want to slap my forehead. The principle is simple: You can’t defeat the Republican right wing agenda by helping right wing Democrats transform the Democratic Party into a an organization that promotes the same disgusting policies that the Republicans support. In order to defeat the right wing agenda, we need to defeat right wing Republicans and right wing Democrats like Jim Matheson.

Still don’t get it? Okay, then. Let’s get serious. How about nuclear weapons? There’s nothing more serious than the prospect of nuclear war. Right wingers are comfortable with the idea of threatening the world with nuclear war. Progressives aren’t. You can’t get more basic in the defining the political divide than that, right?

Well, guess where Jim Matheson placed himself this week. That’s right, on the right wing side again.

Jim Matheson not only refused to support a bill requesting that President Bush begin multilateral talks about the abolition of nuclear weapons. Matheson also voted in favor of a plan made up by George W. Bush to give nuclear fuel and nuclear to a: