DNC Observations and the Spanking of Florida

Where to begin!?!? The short version of the story is this (the longer version can be accessed here): The Democratic National Committee, in order to punish Florida for passing legislation to move its presidential primary before the DNC's set date of February 5, 2008, has announced that the state will be stripped of all its presidential convention delegates.

Several salient points come out in this article (feel free to read it and come up with more in the comments):

• The state party has been told it has 30 days to put its primary back on February 5 or later, or it will lose its delegates. Let me get this straight: The Democrats have suddenly adopted a law-and-order mentality?? This sounds like, well, parenting? (Note: Children should not get 30 days to obey, but politics and politicians move a lot slower than children do.)
• It gets better: Democratic leaders observe that if they let Florida go early, without punishment, that this would "open the door to chaos." And they're right. (This whole idea of Democrats punishing rule-breakers is still new to me. I must assimilate this.) They are even astute enough to realize that this "sends a message" to my state of Michigan and other states. (Democrats + good logic.....more assimilation needed?)
  
• Florida Democrats claim they should not be punished because the GOP-controlled legislature passed the date change and the Republican governor signed it. Now we're seeing the Democratic mode of operation: Blame the other guys! The DNC points out that the state party did little to stop the legislation.
  
• Most of the Democratic presidential candidates had nothing to publicly say on the matter yet. But, they haven't had much to say, anyway.
• And my favorite: Jon Ausman, a member of the DNC from Florida, pleaded to the Rules Committee, "We're asking you for mercy, not judgment." HERE we see the true Democratic spirit: We don't want the consequences of our actions! We know we have willingly and intentionally broken the rules, but please let us off the hook!
  

I hope the Democratic party not only sticks to its guns with Florida, but also holds all of its presidential candidates to the same standard: If you are not honest with the rules, we're going to spank you.