Even the Conservative New Republic...

...has come to understand that so-called "moderate" Republicans actually moderate nothing:

We don't want moderate Republicans to disappear, right? Surely we don't want Congress to descend irrevocably into bitter partisanship, do we? Actually, yes, we do. This November, it's time for voters to wipe out the remnants of the GOP's moderate wing--and without regrets....

For the longest time, U.S. parties lacked ideological coherence. Northern liberals voted Republican and Southern conservatives voted Democrat... From the moment they took power in 1995, Republicans made it clear that they would act differently....

Unlike the moderate wing of the old Democratic majority, [moderate Republicans] seldom do anything without the tacit consent of the leadership. GOP moderates are allowed-- indeed, encouraged--to publicly scold their party leaders, because that's how they hold onto their districts. But these displays of independence are a sham. Republicans have invented, or perfected, numerous methods of projecting the fake image of intraparty dissent....

At best, moderate Republicans have been hapless dupes. At worst, they've been co-conspirators. In either case, they have done almost nothing to alleviate the radical or corrupt tendencies of Republican Washington. Extinguishing the moderates at the polls this November is not a vote for mindless partisanship. It is simply a vote for transparency.

At last. Now if they can just keep their wits about them a little under two years from now when their knees begin to go soft for phony-moderate McCain, we might get somewhere.

If they go so far as to hold supposedly moderate Democrats who act as if the good old bipartisan days are still here, providing phony-bipartisan cover for conservative schemes -- I won't name any names, but the worst offender just resigned his post as a Democrat and is now running on the ticket of the millions-strong, union-wide Connecticut for Lieberman party -- to a similar standard, then I might even reconsider the title I gave this post.

But then again, I'd like a pony, too,* so I'd better not hold my breath.

Still: progress is progress...

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* Okay, not so much.