In truth, there has been no better time for a vindication of activist, Rooseveltian government since the 1930s. The laissez-faire faith lies in pieces around us. Conservative dogmatism lay behind many of the Bush administration’s worst blunders, including some of the monumental screw-ups to which conservative pundits point when denouncing government generally.

But that is not how the Democrats have chosen to respond. Instead, they pine for civility, pretending that the argument comes down to the scary rhetoric issuing from the right. “I have concerns about some of the language that is being used, because I saw this myself in the late ’70s in San Francisco,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week. “This kind of rhetoric was very frightening, and it created a climate in which violence took place.”

I have concerns about the rhetoric being used as well, and about the louts and the bullies who use it. But it seems clear that Mrs. Pelosi’s aim is to avoid debate when she ought to be wading into the thick of it. Her team has the arguments; it has the facts; it has gale-force historical winds at its back: Why not give back as good as you get? Why not simply beat the other side instead of complaining tearfully that they play too rough?

Besides, retreating into some imagined genteel tradition offers little safety. For one thing, it goes against the old rough-and-tumble image of the Democratic Party and confirms instead the effete latte-and-sushi stereotype of recent years. For another, thanks to the 1960s and the Clinton presidency, morality and civility are concepts the right believes it owns. Republican legislators can heckle the president during a speech to a joint session of Congress and this will not change. No contradiction is stark enough to budge conservatives from the point: In fact, during the nation’s last civility panic, even Ann Coulter was able to get in on the deploring.