Give me a break

You know, I'm getting really tired of this.

Behold, Michael Tomasky's latest piece in The U.K. Guardian.

The column is titled, "Change is tough. So liberals can't just leave it to Obama." Tomasky's credentials bear out his self-professed liberalism; his work has appeared in The Nation and The Village Voice.

But you know me; I'm not one to ignore someone's ideas out of hand. So I read the column.

His piece seeks to encourage fellow liberals who are "disillusioned" because President Obama hasn't been able to wave a magic wand and make everything all better since taking the oath of office. As it turns out, Tomasky was right about this:

In general, I'm pleased to report, I counselled that liberals should not delude themselves into over-interpreting the election results. They represented, I thought, a rejection of conservatism (for now), but not an embrace of liberalism. That would come only over time, and only if Obama and the congressional Democrats showed better results for people than Republicans had across a range of fronts.

I was seeing his point and even agreeing with him that liberals have to accept piecemeal change when the country isn't ready for the wholesale version -- at least, not the wholesale version liberals believe is necessary.

And then, I got this:

So now, liberals have to fight hard for something they're not terribly excited about. A health bill will likely have a very weak public option or it won't have one at all. But liberals will have to battle for that bill as if it's life and death (which in fact it will be for thousands of Americans), because its defeat would constitute a historic victory for the birthers and the gun-toters and the Hitler analogists.

Because, you know, in the eyes of liberals like Tomasky, if you don't support the kind of health care reform now working its way through Congress, chances are good that you are either A) a "birther," B) a "gun-toter," and/or C) a Hitler analogist.

Tomasky continues:

In the coming weeks, building toward a possible congressional vote in November, progressives will have to get out in force to show middle America that there's support for reform as well as opposition, even though they may find the final bill disappointing.

Progressives, if you knock on my door in an attempt to show me that there's support for your kind of reform as well as opposition, you'd darn sure better be willing, able and ready to forcefully and eloquently convince me that your movement isn't full of people like Michael Tomasky. Don't expect to occupy the moral high ground in your complaints against right-wing opposition tactics unless you are prepared to denounce the same kind of verbal firebombs lobbed from the left.

I'll tell you this much: Judging from what I've read and heard over the past two weeks, you're going to have an uphill battle on your hands.

Unfortunately for you, Michael Tomasky is no lone voice in the wilderness.