BDS as an occupational hazard

That "misplaced deism" I commented on the other day is exemplified by the willingness of the New York Times to lend its name to the theory that President Bush is responsible for very nearly any bad thing that happened during his term in office. Sadly, the New York Times is not alone in suffering from this malady.

Comes now Los Angeles Times columnist Patt Morrison, whom at least one of my friends respects very much. Morrison looks a little like, and sounds a lot like, Maureen Dowd. She, too, suffers from "Bush Derangement Syndrome." Her January 24th column invoked the stages of grief famously explained to lay audiences by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross to characterize the Bush presidency as a "national near-death experience."

Ponder that for just a minute. Morrison ranks George W. Bush with Benedict Arnold and (in some circles) Abraham Lincoln among people who very nearly sunk this country. Perhaps she has a problem with labeling?

I say if Carter and Clinton couldn't sink the United States, then George Bush can't, either, and anyone who wants to blame his administration for triggering a national "near-death" experience either identifies too closely with the nation or has forgotten the depredations of progressive jurisprudence, not least among them Roe v. Wade and its pathetic dependence on judicial fiat and now-you-see-em, now-you-don't "penumbras and emanations."

Nothing will kill this country faster than thinning the ranks of the next generation in the name of "choice" while fostering the ridiculous belief that the United States has a "living" constitution that needs yet another heaping helping of fertilizer from the federal bench.

But we were talking about Morrison and her insistence on the strange power of George Bush, a C student at Yale and a former Air Force pilot who beat the bottle and allegedly grew up to toy with 300 million people and a gloriously checkered political history. Who knew that one man could wield an eraser with such dexterity? A dose of perspective is in order. Yet Morrison blames Bush personally for a "national near-death experience," while specifically claiming that she has not engaged in hyperbole (I can hear Ben Stein now: "Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?").

The evidence for Morrison's assertion is as shopworn a collection of progressive talking points as anyone could wish for in the lame duck year of a two-term Republican presidency. Bush "had to win election in court," Morrison sniffs, conveniently forgetting that it was Democrat Al Gore and the "hanging chads" who first tried to win election in court. His quest was abetted by a partisan Florida state court, which is why the U.S. Supreme Court took the unusual step of settling the matter. Morrison also forgets that post-election analysis by more than three separate organizations showed Bush the victor in all cases.

Anger follows denial, as Morrison claims that she spent the last seven years going to bed at night "raging against the outrages" only to find "fresh ones with the morning news." The vagaries of "retrograde isolationism" really give Morrison the vapors, so it's probably not wise to ask her how many countries sent troops and other personnel to Iraq in support of American aims there, who provided the muscle for an otherwise toothless series of United Nations resolutions, who talked Libya into coming clean about its weapons programs, who got Vladimir Putin to lean a little on his Iranian friends, or who has done more for the whole continent of Africa than the smooth-talker from Arkansas that Morrison's irony-challenged fellow travelers sometimes called "the first black president."

With that kind of a setup, it's no surprise to see Morrison move on to rail against "bargaining" thusly: "He went to war with terrorism, so if he goes to war against global warming and failing levees the way he did against terrorism, I live with a 'Clear Skies' initiative that pollutes the air and a 'Healthy Forests' initiative that whacks more trees." Marketing-speak can't be this new to Morrison, but her complaint makes you wonder whether the woman has ever read a "Dilbert" cartoon, doesn't it? And note how George Bush, with roots in Texas, must nevertheless shoulder the blame in her mind for a history of levee mismanagement in Louisiana that started long before he'd sworn off the bottle or run for national office. Note also the implicit and utterly unproven assumption that problems are best addressed at the federal level.

Depression is stage four in the Kubler-Ross spectrum, but what Morrison brings to that can only be called redundant, because her column marinates in depression from the minute she introduces her trope by writing that honor and good faith and goodwill "died a little" when George Bush took office. Bye, bye, Miss American Pie.

As for acceptance, unlike Joseph Bottum and some disappointed conservatives, Morrison is just not there yet. But you wouldn't be, either, if you thought "every government agency has been turned into a hit squad for Bush-Cheney, Inc." Perhaps Morrison would defend that claim by stipulating that you of tender years can't know the fears that your elders grew by?

Look at her language. Every government agency? Paranoia strikes deep; into your life it will creep. It starts when you're always afraid. But in the real world, George Bush can't even get the C.I.A. or the State Department to support his policies unequivocally. In the real world, his nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court got the torpedo amidships that it deserved.

In other words, Morrison's "hit squad" definition is laughable. One NASA administrator made news for reconsidering global warmist alarmism, but in her eyes, that's enough to turn the whole agency into a hit squad. And not just NASA, either.

Her charge borders on libel, or would if it weren't so silly. I know for a fact that there's at least one exceedingly kind park ranger who rotates around various Philadelphia landmarks including the Thaddeus Kosciusko house, which is run by the National Park Service. We met briefly this past summer. Amy smiled warmly, gave me and my family pointers on where to park and what to see around the city, let us use the restroom in the Polish patriot's abode, and volunteered to take a family photo. Federal paycheck or no, if she's part of a hit squad in any capacity, she hasn't been told.

Is Patt Morrison a joker? a smoker? a midnight toker? It's hard to say. But she needs to sit quietly with a mug of tea and a teddy bear, counting her blessings.