The bumpy road ahead. The Democrats' intramural war over the next two years will be fought between the moderate, neoliberal branch that dominated during the Clinton years and the paleoliberals who always harbored a grudge over Bill Clinton's accommodation to the center.

Today the New Republic's Peter Beinart stakes out the neoliberal ground while the Nation's David Corn speaks up for that old-time liberalism. Not that they disagree entirely -- both urge the Democrats to challenge George W. Bush's tax cut for the rich, something the party was notably loath to do in the past election. For the most part, though, they lay out different visions for the Democrats -- although not radically different, since both Beinart and Corn are more or less on the same side.

Both of these pieces are worth reading for any liberal who's wondering where we go from here.