To everyone either applauding Clinton's Rove-ish strategy of "vetting" or "toughening up" Obama, as well as Obama folks insisting that it's time to "take the gloves off" and respond in kind; please carefully consider this:

The GOP, in the past 10 years, has turned this guy into the world's most boring pathological liar, and this guy into a yellow-livered traitorous Frenchman. While simultaneously turning this guy into a compassionate leader who listens and understands the concerns of the common guy, and then buy the guy a beer before donning his codpiece to competently steer the American ship safely between the icebergs of a treacherous international sea.

Please ask yourselves, sincerely, how they managed to accomplish this.

If you find yourself stuck, then you could do a whole lot worse than to head over to Campaign for America's Future, where Sara Robinson has been doing a bang-up job deconstructing the past 40 years or so of Republican whoop-ass. I don't think I'd be spoiling much by saying: it wasn't because of the blinding and ineluctable superiority of their worldview. It had much more to do with the way that they managed to create and propagate the rhetorical framework.

Yes, yes, I know. Elections ain't beanbags. But you know what? Politics ain't My Bodyguard, either, where you just know that if you make it to the final reel, you'll get to the part where you, the plucky underdog with the book smarts and the high ideals, manages to land that punch that breaks Matt Dillon's nose. Sorry, but in the script that the Republicans have convinced y'all is the best way to look at things, that punch never lands. Matt just keeps on knocking you on your ass, in perpetuity.

The problem will not be resolved by replacing the actor every time the ending doesn't turn out the way we like. We need to change the script.

Frankly, elections can be whatever we want them to be, if we can simply band together and think a little more strategically about how we go about things. A little more restraint, a little less drama. Breathe deeply. Think critically. Argue carefully, with passion and restraint.

If you think that it's impossible, consider this: less than 150 years ago, educated people were arguing vociferously over whether or not it was permissible for some human beings to own other human beings.

Or this: less than 2 years ago, educated people were arguing vociferously as to whether or not it was OK for the department of Justice (Justice, fer crissakes!) to be restructured into the investigative+punitive agency solely beholden to the whims of the prevailing political party. Do you think that that argument would have even been possible in the '90s? Frames can change, pretty damn quickly.

We need to change the script.