... I want to talk about "the center" one more time.

For the most part, and most viscerally, I react like Admiral Ackbar: "it's a trap."

Centrism of the sort that says the Dems need to hew rightward is bad politics and bad government. It won't rally the majority of Americans who want a change, and it won't save our American pie — nor the pies of a zillion other countries where we've dipped our digits.

But there is another perspective on centrism: that there's a party that's "centered" and one that is beyond the fringe.

The "Left vs. Right" split is not what the Cokie Robertses would have us believe.

There are two major political parties in the U.S. (trust me on this, I looked it up).

• Over the last several decades, the Republican Party has hurtled into the crazy fringes of the right
• The Democratic Party continues to espouse a modest form of progressivism, while in some ways inching — or miling — rightward, prodded by a right-leaning media and post-9/11 jingoism.

Bottom line, there is not a far left analogue to the ruling far right in American politics. There is a reasonable party that wants what most Americans want, and there is a lying, twisted, extremist, authoritarian party that wants, above all else, to channel power to the powerful.

Today's Republicans unabashedly seek to burn the Constitution. They brag of their goal of drowning government in a bathtub. That's the government that's supposed to take action when its enemies are known to be planning a hijacking. That's the government that's supposed to take action when a major American city stands in the path of an historic storm. That's the government that's supposed to protect the meek until they inherit the earth. Sorry for that last one; it's so heretical in this Christian Nation to throw a bone to the disadvantaged. What the hell was I thinking?

Lest I be misunderstood, there is one way that the Democrats must go to bring this country back from the brink of Bushism, and that is toward true liberalism. You know, wacko stuff like wanting kids to be able to see a doctor or get a good education (with actual science, even). Like raising America's diplomatic standing. Like paying down the deficit. Like weaning us off our petroleum addiction to preserve our planet and stop funding Middle East tyrants and terrorists. Crazy, crazy stuff.

Maybe it's part of the plan, the rightwing going so far off-the-rails that the Democrats are stuck being the boring Mr.-and-Ms. Fixits, while the Repubs create all those mind-boggling new realities. But, maybe it's time we remind people how boringly reasonable we are. It just may be that reasonable is the new reasonable.