PROMETHEAN ANTAGONIST

Excerpts:

"... They face (at least) two options:"

"Barack Obama is a sellout, “just Bush with a tan,” subservient to the same malevolent political and economic forces that Bush was.

OR the Bush administration was actually pretty reasonable to adopt these policies in the first place, and the Obama administration has been reasonable enough to recognize the fact.

Both options require the liberal to admit a mistake: either he was wrong about Obama, or he was wrong about Bush. But the first option requires the liberal to sacrifice his love for Obama, while the second option requires him to sacrifice his hatred of Bush. Either Obama was dishonest in the campaign or overwhelmed by baleful influences once he came to the Oval Office — or Obama, once he came to the White House and had the same information and responsibility that Bush had, came to more or less the same conclusions as Bush had."

"Unsurprisingly, Option #1 comes out the huge winner here. So powerful is the partisan mindset that I haven’t seen a single prominent liberal writer take Option #2. They puzzle through the “mystery” of “George W. Obama” and conclude that the contradictions between Obama’s ideals and actions compose “a subtle disaster for all those whose hopes once rested with him.” They would rather abandon their love of Obama than their hatred of Bush. To put it more sharply: they are so deeply committed to the nefariousness and malfeasance of the Bush administration that they would rather believe Barack Obama a failure, a liar or a dupe than believe that George W. Bush took reasonable actions in light of the circumstances...."

# posted by Promethean Antagonist @ 9:54 PM