Joe Scarborough is just a symptom, a noisy, ignorant, pimply symptom to be sure, but still. The real malefactors are the men in executive suits and suites who put such a bozo on the air and allow him to plant his shoes on the dying body of Terri Schiavo and use her as a political soapbox and religious pulpit. It's conservatives who are dehydrating her, draining every last drop of dignity from her death.

If Democrats are serious about preparing for the next election or the next election after that, some influential Democrats will have to resist entrusting their dreams to individual candidates and instead make a commitment to build a stable pyramid from the base up. It will take at least a decade's commitment, and it won't come cheap. But there really is no other choice.