OK -- why did this happen?

It happened, in part, because Democrats -- as is so often the case -- were caught flat-flooted. And why was that? Why did no one in the Democratic Party grasp the fact that right-wingers have rallied around Terri Schiavo, and thus the case was ripe for self-righteous GOP moralizing?

I knew. You know when I did my first post about Terri Schiavo? 2003. Why did I know about her case? Because I pay attention to the hardcore Republican base. I'm a regular lurker at Free Republic and Lucianne.com. I know that's where you can pick up the danger signals. For that matter, I knew the Swift Boat liars were coming a couple of months before their first ad went on the air. It's not rocket science. I knew from FR and Lucianne.

Why the hell does it seem that no one in the Democratic Party does what I do? Why didn't anyone see this coming? Why were no Democrats prepared for this possibility?

Did any Democrat even know the facts of the case before this week? How many Democrats know, even now, that this is hardly an unprecedented case, that Terri Schiavo can't possibly recover, that she won't suffer agony as she dies? Republicans know all the Christian conservative Schiavo talking points. Has any Democrat in D.C. ever even looked at the exhaustive Terri Schiavo information page at Matt Conigliaro's Abstract Appeal to learn the truth about the case?

When Terri Schiavo became Congress's priority #1, Democrats -- as usual -- buckled under pressure. They've just thrown up their hands. From yesterday's New York Times we learned that

For Democrats still struggling in the wake of their defeat in the November elections, the case offered a way to portray their newfound willingness to move to the center on such issues.

From an AP story today we learn that, with regard to the GOP bill to transfer control of the case to federal courts,

The Democratic whip, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said his office was informing members of the vote and not discouraging them from returning to the capital. But he said the party was not counting votes and was telling members to vote their conscience on the issue.

Translation: The Republicans are probably right on this one. As is so often the case, they'll say we're evil if we don't vote with them, and, well, they're right, I guess. After all, they have values. We don't.

Democrats remind me of a woman I used to see doing standup comedy back in the '80s. She talked about an ex-boyfriend and said they had one thing in common:

"We both loved him and hated me."

That's the Democratic Party in relation to the GOP: They both love the GOP and hate the Democrats.

I don't want Democratic resistance to be limited to this:

But Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., spoke of "the manifestation of a constitutional crisis" where Congress, for ideological reasons, was ignoring the separations of power written into the Constitution.

I want someone to say flat out that what Republicans are doing is morally wrong. It stomps on spousal rights and the due process of law. It's hypocrisy given that other parents and guardians are seeing their relatives pulled off life support against their wishes. The grandstanding turns Terri Schiavo into a political football.

An awful lot of ordinary Americans get this. A lot of them would rally to a Democrat who wasn't full of self-hatred, who would say that the Republican position is not the moral position.

But that will never happen.

Shortly after the '04 election, an essay made the rounds that described all Democrats as battered wives. I don't agree -- the Democrats I know don't act like victims who tie themselves in knots to please (Republican) abusers.

But that's because I don't know any Democrats who are officeholders or staffers in the Beltway. When I look at those Democrats, I have to say: Yeah, you're living in an abusive marriage. You've got to stop letting yourself get hit, and you've got to save yourself, for crissakes.