Any time now, Democratic voters will receive word about the selection Barack Obama has made about who will be his vice presidential running mate. It’s a rather undemocratic process, the way that the successor to the President is chosen, and it encourages us to be passive, merely receiving the news instead of being involved in it.

Let me give you something to do, then, as we wait for the news of who Obama’s VP will be. Chew on this bit of information about the top contender, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh:

Although Senator Bayh is now being considered for the contest against John McCain, in 2002, Bayh was the primary Democratic political ally of McCain in the effort to defeat peace activists and pass a resolution to allow George W. Bush to rush into war in Iraq.

I’ve placed that news in red text because it ought to serve as an alarm to progressive Democrats that their own political party may be about to be taken over by right wing allies of John McCain.

In 2002, Evan Bayh provided political cover to John McCain and George W. Bush in the sloppy rush to war that ended up costing thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions, growing into the trillions, of dollars. McCain was able to claim bipartisan support for the hurry-up invasion, thanks to Senator Bayh. “I am proud to join Senators Lieberman, Warner and Bayh in laying down our amendment providing the President the necessary authority to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq,” he said on the floor of the Senate shortly before the vote to approve the invasion of Iraq.

That same day, October 8, 2002, Evan Bayh warned Americans that tens of thousands of midwesterners in a place like Oklahoma City could die of smallpox from Iraqi biological weapons of mass destruction unless George W. Bush was given permission to invade Iraq quickly. Of course, Iraq had no smallpox virus. Iraq had no biological weapons. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

Yet, Evan Bayh was so eager to help John McCain and George W. Bush push America into a new war that he lied. Bayh had no evidence to suggest that Iraq had any plans or any capability to attack the American Midwest with smallpox. Bayh just wanted to make Americans afraid.

Evan Bayh’s scare tactics worked. Thanks to Senator Bayh’s partnership with John McCain, America is now stuck in Iraq.

Now we’re supposed to trust this same politician to campaign against John McCain? Evan Bayh has no place on a Democratic White House ticket. If Barack Obama chooses Bayh as his running mate, it will be a profound insult and betrayal of the progressive, anti-war Democrats who worked to gain the Democratic nomination for Obama in the first place.

If Obama chooses Bayh, hope and change will be the last things we can believe in from the Democrats.

Read the speech by Evan Bayh promoting the rush to invade Iraq – made October 8, 2002.