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I know about these matters from experience. This April 20 (yes, I know…George Takei’s birthday) will mark the fifth anniversary of when I was “outed” as David Cole the Holocaust revisionist. After having lived for fifteen years as David Stein the GOP event organizer and “Friend of Abe,” my life came crashing down in the space of one evening. In the first 48 hours after the outing, before my fair-weather friends allowed the prevailing winds to blow them as far away from me as possible, several big shots in the conservative blogosphere counseled me to get a jump on the inevitable press firestorm (indeed, a week later The Guardian would turn my outing into an international story) by apologizing for the “stupid” and “wrong” views I expressed as a kid. But I couldn’t do that, not only because I knew that my views were neither stupid nor wrong, but also because I understood that apologizing would only increase the severity of my punishment. That’s the principle R. Lee Ermey’s drill sergeant tries to teach Matthew Modine’s cadet in Full Metal Jacket: “Sir, the private believes any answer he gives will be wrong and the senior drill instructor will only beat him harder if he reverses himself, SIR!”

Two months after my outing, as articles condemning me were still appearing on sites like The Wrap, the Huffington Post, and MSNBC, I wrote a piece on my personal blog. I tried to explain why an apology just wasn’t going to happen…why I refused to become “a monkey dancing for the ‘apology police’ organ grinders”:

The problem with the “apology police” is that once you give in to them, they never leave you alone. The apology police are cowards. They go after people who are easily bullied. That’s why I love ‘South Park.’ Parker and Stone never apologize. I recall reading a blog from a “handicapped rights” advocate after the ‘South Park’ episode “Crippled Summer” aired in 2010. The author was lamenting how Parker and Stone chose to portray the handicapped children in the episode as grotesque incarnations of Looney Tunes cartoon characters. But at the end of the post, the author admitted, “there’s no sense in protesting, since those guys never apologize.” Exactly. If you don’t apologize, you eventually get left alone.

The bullies never go after people they can’t break, because to do so would make them look weak and impotent.

I’m not saying never apologize. If you’ve wronged someone, apologize to that person. If Ingraham honestly believes she was unfair to David Hogg, she should apologize to him, personally. But issuing an apology to “the brave victims of Parkland” is not an apology at all. It’s barefaced brownnosing. And the left is going to beat her harder for begging. She hasn’t saved her hide, she’s tanned it.

The Holy Hogg isn’t going to be sacred forever; that’s just the odds. The Democrats know they can’t retake the blue-collar districts that went for Trump by pushing gun control. And besides, the left loves to eat its own, and Hogg, as a white male, is a prime candidate for a purge. The kid’s about to enter that age when most guys discover booze and wild sex. As a narcissist who loves having his every word recorded, it won’t be long before he’s caught on tape speaking disrespectfully of a girl or calling someone a fag (the boy’s already demonstrated his weakness for foulmouthed off-the-cuff banter). That’s another reason to never apologize to a flavor-of-the-week; these things pass. But if Hogg isn’t around a year from now, it’s entirely possible that Ingraham won’t be either.

Hogg the “survivor” may, at the very least, be forever able to brag about having claimed at least one high-profile “victim.” And Ingraham, who refused to stand her ground even though that ground was firm, will have no one to blame but herself.

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