There's certainly been disagreement on the left over whether it makes good strategic sense to reinsert the public option back into the health-care debate at this point in the process. But it's smart to separate that debate from the remarkable success that the grassroots push orchestrated by Democracy for America, Credo, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee have had in shaping that debate. What the netroots has done on the public option is something of a master class in how you might go about doing effective online organizing.

Yesterday, the Bipartisan Policy Center ran a "cyber attack" exercise designed to demonstrate what it would look like if cell phone networks were attacked, Internet resources were damaged, and portions of the U.S. electrical grid brought low. Former White House officials and national security experts like Michael Chertoff and John Negroponte participated. A few points: