Replies

All Obama had to do was give Bush a little credit or at least frame his departures from prior policies in a sort of bad/worse choice dilemma; focus on the financial industry alone; talk up the US economy; rein in the Pelosi/Reid lunancy; and stop all the messianic talk of highest ethical standards in cosmic history while nominating the likes of Daschle and Richardson.

Obama and his people ran as the anti-Bush, capping a years-long, incessant anti-Bush campaign in the media, and they're stuck with that posture. Even were they astute enough to realize that the sort of approach VDH describes here could easily be presented as the grace of the winner, they simply can't bring themselves to it emotionally. Now it's too late.

I think, though, that Obama himself is coming into what must to him be a horrifying realization that Bush had reasons for doing as he did that are quite outside the adolescent fulminations of his enemies on the left. What has happened simply is that they started to believe those fulminations and commited themselves to policies predicated on flawed premises because it felt so good to hate. I can't honestly feel sorry for anyone mired in their own muck that way. They created it, let them wallow in it.

"I think, though, that Obama himself is coming into what must to him be a horrifying realization that Bush had reasons for doing as he did that are quite outside the adolescent fulminations of his enemies on the left."

We will see. Obama proved to be a flexible campaigner. Grunted, that was all words, and now he would have to sign under the real policies. If he is 1/100 smart as they say he is, its no second too late to start searching for his own Dick Morris. Unless I underestimate him and he is indeed a cold hearted Maquiavelli, he should feel some pangs of worry that not everything is like it was supposed to be.