Letting Idiots Be Bygones

As Doctor Biobrain commented on the irrepressible Digby's Hullabaloo (before realizing that he had just written his next post) regarding Andrew Sullivan's recent conversion attempt:

I have no problem with moderate dipshit Republicans like Sullivan and Brooks switching sides and hitting for our team. They're not completely dumb, they just have blind spots due to their Republicanism. Like a clock with a few gears missing: it'll keep time, but it slowly becomes less accurate. But if they're willing to cross over, more power to them. Maybe if they can finally get past their childish mental blocks, they'll be able to be fully intelligent humans, rather than the half-asses they've been.

My only problem is that they don't seem to want to switch without strings attached. Namely, they want to switch, but they want to name their terms and act like THEY'RE the ones that made Democrats good again. Essentially, they're trying to act like it was OUR fault that they were Republicans, and that if we had been less kooky, they'd have been with us the whole time. And that's largely what the Repub strategy has been, to make us look like repulsive kooks so that moderates would switch over. So they're trying to set their terms for switching back.

But I think that's really just a face-saving measure. They just can't admit that they were wrong, and that's perfectly understandable. I was once a Republican and Limbaugh listener many many years ago, and I still get redfaced and humiliated whenever my former Dem adversaries bring up that fact. Nobody likes a sore winner.

My point: we don't necessarily need to indulge their egos by letting them think that they saved the Democratic Party, but we don't need to rub it in either. If they're willing to switch teams, let them and let the past be the past. As I said, I was once a strong GOP'er, and now I'm a stronger Dem. Be gracious. Only little people seek little victories. I don't want to rub it in Sullivan's face; I want to win in 2006 and beyond. We don't need to take his advice, but we don't need to mock him either.