"But I'll tell you what, all you conservatives who want us to bow and scrape at the altar of your newfound civility. I'll maybe start thinking you're sincere about 'restoring civility' and 'turning down the hate' when I stop seeing and hearing the following -- not just from the bottom feeders like Adam Yoshida, but leading conservatives like Bill Bennett, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter:

-- That liberals are the root of all evil.
-- That liberals are innately treasonous.
-- That they are internal enemies on a par with Al Qaeda.
-- That they are responsible for conservative failures.
-- That electing a liberal president would bring the end of the republic.
-- That the nation would be better off if liberals were just eliminated.


I'll start to believe you're sincere about civility when I'm no longer reading books with titles on these subjects, and seeing them reach the bestseller lists.

Most of all, I'll think there might be something to this civility thing when I see actual conservatives start standing up for basic human decency -- which at one naive time in my life I actually believed conservativism stood for -- and publicly repudiating these people.

But when I read and hear these things, and I look around for supposedly decent conservatives to say something, what do I hear?

Silence.

That speaks all the volumes that need be spoken between us. And will be, for the foreseeable future. "