US: Frustrated American liberals are planning a fightback against the hectoring neo-conservatives who have set the political agenda of the Bush administration, reports Conor O'Clery from New York.
After years of taking a hammering from conservative talk radio, and frustrated at how right-wing foundations and think-tanks have set the agenda for the Republican administration, the liberal opposition in the US is mounting a fightback - using the same tools.
The counter-offensive is spurred by animosity towards President George Bush, bitter opposition to the Iraq war, and an injection of big bucks from billionaire financier Mr George Soros.
As liberalism comes back into vogue, new left-leaning foundations and websites have taken up the cause and are set to become significant players in the presidential campaign.
A consortium funded by wealthy Chicago Democrats and led by former America Online executive Mr Mark Walsh plans to set up a liberal radio network to counterbalance right-wing radio shows hosted by conservatives such as Mr Rush Limbaugh, Mr G. Gordon Liddy and Mr Oliver North.
The group, Progress Media, said it will broadcast in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Boston early next year, as the 2004 election campaign gets into full swing.
The presenters are expected to include comedian Al Franken, anti-war actress Janeane Garofalo, and former Democratic speechwriter Mr Martin Kaplan, who said he wanted "to make fun of the pomposity and the bullying which the right has engaged in and a good chunk of the mainstream media has bought into".
Franken epitomises the new aggressiveness and anger on the left. His anti-Bush book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, has been at the top of the New York Times non-fiction best sellers' list for months, along with Michael Moore's Dude Where's My Country, which also savages the Bush administration.
Previous liberal talk shows, such as one hosted by former New York Governor Mr Mario Cuomo, failed partly because the message was too diffuse, analysts say. By contrast conservative talk radio focused on big spending, political correctness, feminism, gay rights, abortion and other cultural issues which resonated with Americans who felt alienated by the mass media.
Now liberals are appealing to a newly alienated sector of Americans by targeting Mr Bush, Attorney General Mr John Ashcroft, Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld, as well as the Iraq war and the Patriot Act.
There are formidable challenges for the left nevertheless. Polls show that while one in three Americans acknowledges being "conservative", only one in five accepts the label of "liberal", a word associated with support for affirmative action, environmental causes, feminism, gun control and anti-war agitation.
In an analysis of the new front in the culture wars, USA Today, America's biggest daily newspaper, said that after decades of being "shushed" by centrist Democrats seeking voter support, "liberals have kicked their way out of the political closet". The new attitude has translated into a surge of grass-roots support for anti-war Democratic frontrunner Mr Howard Dean, who took on President Bush over Iraq when liberalism was on the defensive.
Where Mr Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992 by appealing to the Democratic centre, the former Vermont governor has gone in the opposite direction in today's changed climate to court what he calls "the democratic wing of the Democratic party".
Of the anti-Bush websites which circumvent conventional media such as Fox, MSNBC and CNN, the most dramatic growth has been recorded by MoveOn.org, which started with an e-mail list of 300 to oppose the impeachment of President Clinton and today has 1.8 million members. Last month former vice-president Mr Al Gore used a MoveOn-sponsored event to attack the Bush administration for rolling back American freedoms, and the website has paid for national newspaper advertisements criticising Mr Bush as a "MisLeader" over Iraq.
Mr Gore himself is involved in a project to start a new youth-oriented cable TV network with the backing of Mr Joe Hyatt to counter conservative channels such as Fox News.
MoveOn moved from the fringes with the help of $2.5 million from Mr Soros, who spent a vast fortune promoting democracy in eastern Europe and who believes it is a matter of "life and death" to defeat Mr Bush in 2004.
Mr Soros accused neo-conservatives of exploiting terrorist attacks to promote an agenda of pre-emptive war. "Bush feels that on September 11th he was anointed by God," he told the Washington Post. "He's leading the US and the world toward a vicious circle of escalating violence."
The Hungarian-born financier, who's anti-Bush book, The Bubble of American Supremacy will be published this month, has also pledged $10 million to a new liberal foundation called America Coming Together. Founded by two dozen liberal groups, its goal is to fight back against the "extremist Bush agenda" of tax cuts to benefit the wealthy and the erosion of civil rights and environmental protections.
Former Clinton chief of staff, Mr John Podesta, has just founded another think tank, the Centre for American Progress, whose goal is "to turn the nation away from a radical, conservative policy agenda". At the launch, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton appealed for funds to allow the foundation to combat Republicans trying to "erase the 20th century".
Also a beneficiary of a grant of $3 million from Mr Soros, it has become a key element of the new liberal infrastructure confronting the intellectual institutions on the right, many of which were founded in reaction to the perceived liberal dominance of the US media several decades ago.
Among the most influential are the American Enterprise Institute which provided conservative support for the war on Iraq, the Heritage Foundation, founded to promote conservative policies, and the Federalist Society, set up to promote law reform. All have been used as a forum by Mr Bush and his cabinet members.
The fury of the liberals today matches the anger of conservatives in the 1990s which was directed mainly against the Clintons. The energy tapped by the new opposition could decide the outcome of the 2004 election. The US is still split down the middle according to a recent Time magazine poll. It showed 48 per cent of Americans unlikely to vote for Mr Bush and 47 per cent likely to vote for him.