Forgive? Maybe. Forget? Never!

As the post-mortems on the McCain/Palin campaign are written, many of them will have these common themes:

• McCain was a man of principle who let himself be turned toward the dark side by Rovian handlers who promised him electoral glory and a big painting in the White House for posterity,
• Palin was unprepared and out of control ... a self-centered, power-hungry woman hardened by rough and tumble Alaskan politics,
• There was no way McCain/Palin could compete with the vast sums of money collected by the Obama campaign,
• Everything would have gone the Republicans' way if the economy hadn't tanked,
  Everything would have gone the Republicans' way if the media had reported our victory in Iraq,
• Everything would have gone the Republicans' way if the media had reported who the REAL Barack Obama was!

But as McCain's self-proclaimed base, the mainstream media, try to rehabilitate his image as a proud, principled, fallen warrior, I will be one of many who will never forget how hateful and ugly the Republican campaign was. As John Aravosis writes on AmericBlog.com:

After eight years of having Republicans call me an un-American troop-hating fag-loving socialist, after months of John McCain embracing the hate to a level where his own supporters were calling out for Barack Obama to be assassinated, no one is going to be permitted to tell me with a straight face that "oh you know, both sides do it."

Your side was abominable. Your side was hateful. Your side race-baited. Your side gay-baited. Your side lied like we've never seen in recent presidential campaign history. Your side used a tax-cheat who would do better under Obama's tax proposal to be your everyman on the issue of taxes. Your side, in a veiled effort at race-baiting, said Obama doesn't put his country first. Your side had the audacity to call Obama a socialist. Your side suggested he was a Muslim. Your side suggested he was a terrorist. Your side suggested he was Osama bin Laden.

Spare me the crap about how both sides do it.

You people are a disgrace, you've been a disgrace for eight long years, and all your hate and lying and venom and vitriol finally bit you in your collective fat ass.

Democrats don't do nasty, and they certainly don't do it well. Lord knows I wish they did, but they don't. Republicans elevate it to a religion. You are the party of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity. Angry, bitchy, bitter and elitist. What do we have to compare? Jesse Jackson, I often hear from my Republican friends. Um, maybe in 1980 when he was relevant. It's been 28 years, got any other examples? Michael Moore, you say? What has Michael Moore said - name one thing - that's comparable to the filth that regularly issues forth from Limbaugh, Hannity and Coulter and, of late, McCain and Palin?

Democrats, when they skewer (which isn't often enough), do it with biting truth. Republicans skewer, early and often, with vicious lies. It goes back to a more general
philosophy that liberals have: If we just tell them the truth, the people will agree with us. Republicans are far less sanguine. They know that a good lie beats the truth any day of the week.

Except on a Tuesday in November.

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