An honest note to DU's so-called "purists": [View All]

[Robb]

You know who you are. You know what you've dished out, what you've taken. The names you've been called, and called others.

I appreciate you. I salute you.

Here's why:

You. Never. Give. Up. Thank you for that.

A lot of us look at a solution that winds up in the middle ground, and say "Hey, a solution!" And we feel pretty smug about it. And we jump all over you for complaining that you didn't get every single thing you asked for, we asked for, really, but you're still asking for, because hey, we've got something, right?

We forget.

We forget that politics in this country is a game of tug-of-war, complete with a knotted handkerchief on a rope dangling above a a mud puddle.

We forget that for every tea-bagging bigoted knuckle-dragger on the other side, there's one of you on ours. Sometimes two, because those bastards are loud and pulling hard.

We forget we'd be standing in that puddle but for you, the anchors. Digging in your heels, demanding perfection. And not by being the enemy of the good, but the enemy of the bad.

We forget it's all of us on this side of the puddle, pulling in the same direction.

In the end, solutions tend to be a middle ground. Maybe not smack in that puddle, but in the mud around it. No one realistically denies that.

But it's foolish to deny the importance of our anchors.

So dig in. Lean back. Hold fast. Don't take "compromise" for an answer. Don't take "good enough." Don't take "better than we had."

And for the love of all that's holy, don't let us ever talk you out of your grip on the end of that rope.

You're our anchors. Thanks. :patriot: