I’ve been waiting for the stabbed-in-the-back talk to start getting serious. I had expected it to begin about January 21, so it’s a little late — I guess the operatives took a well-earned break right after the inauguration. Here’s Instapundit:

When Ted Kennedy can make an absurd and borderline-traitorous speech on the war, when Michael Moore shares a VIP box with the last Democratic President but one, when Barbara Boxer endorses a Democratic consultant/blogger whose view of American casualties in Iraq is “screw ’em,” well, this is the authentic face of the Left. Or what remains of it.

There was a time when the Left opposed fascism and supported democracy, when it wasn’t a seething-yet-shrinking mass of self-hatred and idiocy. That day is long past, and the moral and intellectual decay of the Left is far gone. Link

Here’s John Hinderaker:

John H. Hinderaker, founder of Time Magazine’s “Blog of the Year,” and clearly a reasonable, rational person, was just on WABC-AM with Larry Kudlow. After calling the Iraq elections a “bombshell” (interesting word choice) for the Middle East, he went on to say that it was “pretty clear” that in our country, “the Left had lined up behind the terrorists.” Link

These are not marginal figures, but two of the most respected conservatives on the net. Basically, they’ve taken over the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler’s message and cleaned up his language a bit.

I really don’t think that Democrats are prepared for what’s coming. This isn’t going to be business as usual, especially when they start getting public opinion ready for war against Iran.