As the Democrats sink deeper in the swamp of heated rhetoric, the gilded cloak of beneficence and good intention is slipping away.

National Review's Jim Lacey suggests in a compelling and powerful column that the right should claim the moral high ground:

Soon after I published an article questioning the global-warming orthodoxy, the world's foremost hypocrite, Al Gore, informed anyone who still listens to him that my position is akin to racism. The wise course of action would be to ignore the rants of a man who desperately needs the world to remain fearful of carbon, the element on which all life on earth is based. If that fear were to vanish, how would he continue to rake in the millions needed for the purchase of his next beach house?

But enough is enough. Why should I sit quietly and let myself be branded a racist? In fact, will someone please explain how the Left is always assumed to have the moral high ground in these kinds of debates? I am particularly curious about this, as leftist policies continue to destroy the lives of tens of millions in this country and billions worldwide.

Lacey eloquently lists the destructive follies of leftist do-gooders, citing the crusade against genetically modified seeds in the face of a starving Africa, and the environmentalist ban on DDT allowing the "scourge of malaria" to persist in Africa and elsewhere.

Mr. Lacey reserves a special critique for hypocrites like Gore who live lavishly but would forced impoverished peoples to rely on so-called alternative, aka unreliable and unattainable, energy sources, quoting Ugandan writer Fiona Kobusingye:

Not having electricity means millions of Africans don't have refrigerators to preserve food and medicine... people don't have lights, computers, modern hospitals and schools, air conditioning -- or offices, factories, and shops to make things and create good jobs. Not having electricity also means disease and death.

And Mr. Lacey observes "yet I am the one Al Gore brands as a racist."

The column goes on to describe the economic ruin of the urban welfare state and "leftist teachers unions" that yield a 46.5 percent unemployment rate among black teenagers.

Aside from the trail of destruction, the big-spending liberals are leaving a legacy of crushing debt for generations to come, mindful only of their quest for dominion of every aspect of American life.

In the meantime we will endure another year of a President who vainly pursues his own delusions, blind to the wreckage that flows in his wake.

The left long ago ceded the moral high ground, and, as Mr. Lacey urges, the right should claim it and proudly defend what others before us have sacrificed so dearly to build.