Where art the moderates?

Slate's Anne Applebaum says Jon Stewart's Million Moderate March shows how skewed the political center has become.

"This is how words, and then ideas, vanish from our political lexicon: Whatever connotations it once had, the word moderate has now come to mean liberal or even left-wing in American politics. It has been a long time since moderate Republicans were regarded as important, centrist assets by their party. Nowadays, they are far more likely to be regarded as closet lefties and potential traitors. Moderate Democrats, meanwhile, no longer exist at all. In their place, we have 'Conservative Democrats.' Nobody pays attention to them, either—unless, suddenly, one of them threatens to vote against the health care reform. And then he is vilified."

Yes, she's basically right. But though it is tear-your-hair-out maddening, American politics is cyclic in nature. Despite all of the woe-is-us chatter (including my own), the current pendulum swing toward nuttiness stems mainly from the recession and cultural changes (most symbolically represented by Obama). As sure as the dawn, sanity will return to the union -- eventually.