Earlier today, two fine Kossacks, thereisnospoon and Virginia Dem, well-known on DailyKos, posted two fine diaries about the crazies, their crazy talk, and what is owed to us and what actually is expected. What we are owed, of course, is an apology. Or, rather, a series of apologies. Okay, let's call it what it is (or should be): A royal ass-kissing, a self-abasing plea for forgiveness, an embarrassing admission of guilt, a series of "mea maxima culpas."
What we expect is, of course, very little. These people said crazy things because they are, in fact, crazy. They're out of their effing minds. These are the people who've made "liberal" the new "n-----". These are people who say, literally, "[he]'s a nice guy, but he's a Democrat, as a justification for allowing a sexual predator to groom teenage victims instead of notifying the Democrat on the Page Board.
But the question we should be asking is this: What do we want? What do we hope for? What will be best for us, as Democrats? That answer is simple. Nothing. I want nothing. More below the fold.
Yeah, that's right, nothing, nada, zip, zilch. I want the crazies to continue their craziness. I want them to ignore the whole thing, in their unbridled arrogance and their firm conviction that any Republican is better than any Democrat.
The brilliance of W and Rove, and the current Republican wisdom, is twofold:
Play to the base;
Wedge voters apart.
Fine. They want to play to their base? That's just fine. Because their base (believe it or not) is even crazier than they are. Keep in mind that an estimated 4 million conservative Christians didn't vote for Bush in 2000 because they found out about an old DUI. These are people who were devastated when Ted Haggard was thrown, kicking and shooting up, out of the closet. It doesn't take much to demoralize them and keep them home instead of at the polls, and lately there have been a lot of demoralizing situations, from their view. And since the Republican leaders (W, Rove, and all the rest) haven't been playing to anyone but the base for the last 6 years, who else will now show up to fill in those R votes?
The same goes for the wedge issues. A wedge is any point that is black and white: With us or against us. They've already reached a point where the wedges are starting to push people back to the other side (Schiavo, stem cells, etc.). This is just another wedge, and like all the others, it's one that they put in place. On their side of the wedge are a bunch of people who will keep sexual predators in office, as long as an "(R)" is after their name. On their side of the wedge are people who've turned on George H.W. Bush, POTUS #41, for crying as his son (obviously not W) was honored for leadership. Yes, that's right, they turned on a WWII pilot and CIA director for not being manly enough. On their side of the wedge is a president who is about to roundly reject a pretty moderate, uncontroversial set of recommendations from his own new Secretary of Defense. On their side of the wedge are people who said stupid, crazy things about Democrats, and about anyone who votes Democrat. Well, piss-for-brains, the majority of people just voted Democrat. What do you guess they think about all that shit you've been talking?
I don't believe in wedge issues. But they do, and they are now wedging down into the cliff, failing to recognize that they're on the overhang, and we're the ones on solid ground. The 1/3 of U.S. citizens who can swing from one side to the other are starting to realize how crazy the Republican leaders are, and that other third, the devout supporters, is so crazy that they're about to start stoning to death any man who wears pink, or drinks, or cries, ever, just in case.
So, apologies? Fuck 'em. We don't need 'em. We don't want 'em. What we want, we'll get, and we'll get it by standing up and taking it -- and that's more W's (wins, not Bushes) in 2008.