There have been some frightening experiences recently for the supposedly center left world. For me, it began when The New Republic suggested purging anti-Iraq War Democrats from the party. At that point, those of us who opposed the war were not quite in the majority but we had perceived the possibility of a tipping point. The nation was turning against the war and this call for a purge was the reaction.

Luckily, the tipping point was at hand and the call went nowhere. Pro-war Democrats from all over began to admit their mistakes or, at least, change their minds. There was another, much stronger call for a purge but it came from the left as personified by David Sirota at the moment.

This call for a purge is equally scary and equally unlikely to work. What bothers me about it is the lesser punishment inflicted upon pro-war Democrats returning to the fold as personified by the DLC. Those of us whose views are closely expressed by David Sirota want those DLC people to return crawling the last mile on their hands and knees through broken glass, etc.

For the moment, let's set aside the fact that the much maligned DLC is not the boogeyman its foes believe it to be. Yes, there were some Democrats who voted for the war resolution. Some of those did so out of a desire for coercive diplomacy and some did so out of cowardice. (Please stop hitting me, Mister Rove. I'll vote for anything!)

Purging those cowardly Reps and Senators or forcing them to abase themselves publicly will not help us. We need a unified party to win in November 2006 and/or November 2008. Think of the story of the prodigal son. I'm not familiar with the Biblical version of it so I'm talking about the one where the runaway son sends a letter asking his parents to tie a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree if he's welcome to come home. When the son makes his recon past the home, he finds a yellow ribbon around every tree.

We need to stop printing screeds about how different we are so we can print up all the yellow ribbons we can lay our hands on. Ed Kilgore found 80% agreement with a list published by Atrios and forwarded by Kevin Drum.

There are things we'll find much harder to work out. For instance, how do we pull out of Iraq and do the least damage to our foreign policy? How do we support the troops, get them out of the shooting gallery and save the all-volunteer military? We can work all of this out among ourselves before, during and after the next election so we are ready to govern.

Let's gather up all the (pick your favorite durable material) we can find and show everyone who the original big tent party is.