The come to Jesus Moment was not one but several.

The Righties started howling about Creationism a lot and it got to a point where it was not something that could be ignored regardless of any other common causes,,,

The Common causes turned out to be way more complicated and nuanced than any one was able to see coming out of 9/11. Time heals all so as the reality came into focus, Fjordman, and Robert Spenser and Pamela Gellar and the whole rogues gallery of anti-muslim bigot maniacs stuck out like a sore thumb so they could be seen for who and what they really were. Especially since over time they made far less effort to hide it.

A few of us who bought a lot of the denialist bullshit on AGW were convinced that we were refusing to see the truth for dumb reasons (for example, my AGW denialism was because I didn’t agree with the solutions being offered at the time, so I just disregarded it out of hand.) Being that we are rational people who generally don’t subscribe to magical thinking it was only a matter of time before we, Charles included, came around on the subject. Those who didn’t left or were shown to the door.

This happened at the same time as:

The left stopped comparing GWB to Hitler. They marginalized the 9/11 truthers in their midst. They started to crack down on antisemitism on their blogs (they still have work to do on this one). They stopped letting Hamas supporters and communists co-opt their unrelated protests with no comment or resistance. I didn’t hear CNN anchors talking about GWB reinstating the draft anymore. I didn’t see mainstream left of center websites ranting about how Bush was going to declare martial law with some obscure continuity of government executive order.

In other words, the calmer heads on the left side of the aisle started to take over, just when the right was going from a simmering but manageable crazy to ORLY Taitz.