They wanted their politics to be civil, not a permanent state of war. Civility has its place, in politics and in general. As Mr. King made clear, civility must be subordinate to the larger goal of justice. King respected the core humanity of even the worst segregationists, but held them responsible for their choices. Likewise, the Democrats have an obligation to point out that Bush's tax plan will overwhelmingly benefit that tiny minority of Americans who already control far more wealth than all the rest of us combined.
Justice demands accountability.
Pleas for bipartisan collegiality don't excuse cooperation with truly dubious actions, especially since this is no normal presidency. Bush lost the popular vote, we need to remind ourselves, by 540,000 votes. He was handed a victory when Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and his cohorts abandoned their own long-proclaimed principles of states' rights to block the reexamination of contested and discarded ballots. When Justice Scalia cynically used the rhetoric of equal protection to hand Bush the victory, it mocked the thousands of African-American registered voters who talked of their ballots being tossed or of being turned away from the Florida polls. The Democrats can bury this history, as they mostly have so far.