Watch Dan Rather apologize for not getting his facts straight, humiliated before the eyes of America, voluntarily undermining his credibility and career of over thirty years. Observe Donna Brazille squirm as she is ridiculed by Bay Buchanan, and pronounced irrelevant and nearly non-existent. Listen as Donna and Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer take to the airwaves saying that they have to go back to the drawing board and learn from their mistakes and try to be better, more likable, more appealing, have a stronger message, speak to morality. Watch them awkwardly quote the bible, trying to speak the new language of America. Surf the blogs, and read the comments of dismayed, discombobulated, confused individuals trying to figure out what they did wrong. Hear the cacophony of voices, crying out, “Why did they beat me?”

And then ask anyone who has ever worked in a domestic violence shelter if they have heard this before.

They will tell you, every single day.

The answer is quite simple. They beat us because they are abusers. We can call it hate. We can call it fear. We can say it is unfair. But we are looped into the cycle of violence, and we need to start calling the dominating side what they are: abusive. And we need to recognize that we are the victims of verbal, mental, and even, in the case of Iraq, physical violence.

As victims we can’t stop asking ourselves what we did wrong. We can’t seem to grasp that they will keep hitting us and beating us as long as we keep sticking around and asking ourselves what we are doing to deserve the beating.

There's a lot of truth in this, the right is abusive of their power, and dismissive of any suggestion that they should work with the opposition. Think of the comparison Grover Norquist drew -- reported in the Denver Post -- between bipartisanship and date rape. Their ideal is clearly the one party state. The excuse they offer is that Congressional Democrats were high-handed and controlling when they were on top, but, as usual, the lack of comparable proportion is telling.

Partly this harsh attitude may stem from their dismissal of the value of government to do good, but it must also be said that they're just plain old mean and nasty people.

(Often it's possible for me to see the potential that people who are powerful and abusive in their public dealings could well be loving and caring in their private lives, to their families and close friends, but it's interesting that with a goodly number of the public figures on the right, their personas are so hard-edged and without any apparent redeeming values, it's difficult, if not impossible, to imagine them being loving and beneficient in private.)

As for the Democrats, while certainly their current behavior is in some ways like the abused partners of a dysfunctional relationship, not all of it can be ascribed to this. The soul-searching that's going on right now within the party and the ranks of progressives and liberals, isn't simply a reaction to being beat up by the right -- although there's a danger it can turn into that when we start talking about jettisoning our long-held values in the attempt to attract a few extra votes -- it's mostly an honest attempt to explore methods and mechanisms which can help us to break free from being the weak partner in that pairing.

[Via Follow Me Here, which recently celebrated its five year anniversary -- Congratulations!]