nyceve's diary got me thinking ...
Remember when they called us traitors? When they said our cries of reason "encouraged" terrorists?" When they said we were hurting troop morale? That we were like Nazi sympathizers?
Remember when they called Jim Webb stupid? That Howard Dean should be hung for treason? That Michael Moore was disengenous? That Al Gore had gone crazy and needed medication?
Well, I want that damn apology now.
They called us traitors and deluded and unhinged. But it looks like we were all right about Iraq, and "they" were all wrong. Not only about Iraq, but about us. We aren't traitors. Or stupid. Or crazy.
So, to Bush and his enablers and supporters, I ask: where's our damn apology?
And I'm being serious. This isn't some sort of snarky diary -- I want a damn apology. Not just for me, but for everyone who saw this coming in 2003. And for everyone who had the gall to criticize the spiraling disaster that was obviously unfolding along the way. For years you've been violating us with hate speech - it's time for you to take some of that "responsibility" for your own actions that you right-wingers are always bragging about.
So, to all those sanctimonious pundits and politicians again, from the powerful halls of George Bush's White House to the sad little computer in Michelle Malkin's apartment: Don't just pretend the last several years of your vitriol and insults didn't happen. Don't put on your punditocracy blinders and "bipartisan" act and pretend you were part of this struggle to save the country from Bush's blunder all along. The price of admission now begins with an apology. Tell us you were wrong, that you are sorry, that we weren't traitors and monsters and evil. Wounds don't heal unattended.
I don't care if you leak some secret memo saying that things look grim, or if you pound the President on your radio show, or even if you admit you were wrong about the war itself the whole time. I want my damn apology. You don't smear millions of true American patriots who care about their country with words like "traitor" - Americans who then turned out to be right all along - and then pretend that your hate speech was just words that need not be revisted.
You're not getting off that easy.
When we talk about trying to figure out what went wrong the past 3 years - what intel was fudged, what lies were told, what mistakes were made - you better be damned sure I want your slurs against us to be part of the consideration. That your comments behind that podium or that microphone or that keyboard were a large part of why this disaster took so many months. That, had you not been attacking the messengers all these years and listened to the message with some intelligence a tad higher than the knee-jerk responses you gave us, we might not be in this mess.
But, before we get to that, we can start first with your damn long-overdue apology to all of us. I'm still waiting.
UPDATE: Look, obviously I'm not holding my breath. Obviously I don't expect Bush or Hannity or their ilk to send me or Dean or Kos or Webb an email saying "Oops, my bad!" But that doesn't mean we should just shrug, say "oh well," and move one. Even if the apology is never coming, you demand it, you force people to remember the past and demand accountability for it. They may never concede, but the demand is there and shapes future discourse. It's not just the lies on intel and the incompetence and the fraud we need to demand accountability for - we need to demand accountability on the rhetoric as well. They'll never apologize, but I'll demand an apology now and forever as a way to make sure this never happens again.