I was skimming thru a few left-wing sites and stopped on Balloon Juice. There's a post up called "Great Moments In Bootlicking." It's an eye-grabbing title, so I read it. John Cole, the blog's author, is responding to something Ed Morrisey wrote at Hot Air. Here's what Morrisey wrote:
“Unprepared for war”? That admission won’t help him in the final weeks. I think it’s also inaccurate. The Bush administration was prepared for war in Iraq, but they were not prepared for the occupation that followed. If he’s referring to 9/11, he was just as prepared for that as the Clinton administration, and for the same reasons. No one wanted to believe we were already at war with Islamist terrorists — and some people refuse to believe it even today. John Edwards called the war on terror a “bumper sticker”, and unfortunately he’s hardly alone.
Now to a rational person that might sound pretty reasonable, even if he/she doesn't agree with every particular point. Was Bush prepared for war and unprepared for the occupation? One can certainly make that case pretty easily. Was Bush unprepared for 9/11, just like the Clinton administration would have been unprepared? Yes, that's pretty much a given -- we were obviously unprepared for that type of terrorist attack. Did people in general think we were at war with Islamic terrorism before 9/11? No. Do some people now downplay the threat? Yes.
So Morrisey's points are either facts, or at least debatable. But what does Cole think? According to him, Morrisey's comments demonstrate "unprecedented heights" of "Bush sycophancy" and illustrate the "disintegrating credibility of movement Republicanism in a nutshell." Really? Yes, he's actually serious. In Cole's left-wing world, anything but the most rabid BDS-style attack on Bush is "Bush sycophancy."
Anyone who has ever argued with left-wingers about the Bush administration has seen this phenomenon over and over. It's a prime symptom of Bush Derangement Syndrome. It goes something like this:
Left-winger: puts forth ridiculous, over-the-top attack on Bush
Right-winger: agrees that Bush has done x, y, and z wrong, but points out that Left-winger's attack is irrational, purely partisan, a conspiracy theory, or otherwise weak.
Left-winger: accuses Right-winger of being a worshiper of Bush.
No matter how critical you are of Bush, the moment you say anything that could be interpreted by a leftist as the slightest defense of him, you have then achieved "unprecedented heights" of "Bush sycophancy."
