22 Comments

1. Sigivald:

They have always in the past (2004, 2006) said “We were just joking! Honest! Despite those raving fits of derangement wondering how Bush Was Going To Declare Martial Law Or Steal The Election, we never believed it for a second. Honest!”.

I see no reason to believe this will change.

(And the same was true, in fairness, of the Clinton Derangement sufferers who thought he’d do the same thing, or “use Y2K as an excuse to turn the country over to UN control with the fleets of Black Helicopters”.

I wish I was making that last one up.)

Jan 20, 2009 - 11:12 am 2. tim maguire:

I vote for simply forgetting where necessary, rewriting history where possible, and finding and/or inventing new complaints to distract from the abysmal track record.

Jan 20, 2009 - 11:13 am 3. rbj:

Oh no. They’ll be proud of BDS. The were simply “speaking truth to power”* and “taking back the country.”

*And I hope never to hear that stupid, self-indulgent phrase again

Jan 20, 2009 - 11:27 am 4. Larry J:

No, they’ll claim their vigilance was what kept ShrubChimpyBushHitler from going through with his evil plans. BDS is as BDS does.

Jan 20, 2009 - 11:30 am 5. Brian Tiemann:

What, you mean like how once it becomes clear that the globe is not actually warming, it’ll be because we all were so good about buying Priuses and carbon credits?

History is the most frustrating caricature of science: you never get to re-run an experiment.

Jan 20, 2009 - 11:50 am 6. Bryan Lovely:

“Oh no. They’ll be proud of BDS. The were simply “speaking truth to power”* and “taking back the country.”

*And I hope never to hear that stupid, self-indulgent phrase again”

Oh, don’t worry, you won’t. The left and the press (but wait, I repeat myself) will fawn all over themselves for “supporting the President as he brings Americans together” (or something), while voices of dissent (i.e., us) will be “divisive” and “negative”.

“Speaking truth to power” is a virtue and a duty only when it’s liberals complaining about conservatives.

Jan 20, 2009 - 11:50 am 7. Andrew Ian Dodge:

Well considering their classy booing and jeering of him as he left office I don’t hold out much hope.

Jan 20, 2009 - 12:27 pm 8. Midwestern Progressive:

I’m just happy to see him go. No derangement here. Just glad to see the small man leave office, after surrounding himself with incompetent sychophants and spending years governing for the benefit of the GOP rather than the American citizenry.

Good riddance to him.

Jan 20, 2009 - 12:30 pm 9. frank martin:

Looks like another federal bailout opportunity to me. Weve just got to help these poor people get over the loss of their walkin-talkin voodoo doll on which they pinned their daily self important psychodrama.

Jan 20, 2009 - 12:36 pm 10. Stephen R:

“History is the most frustrating caricature of science: you never get to re-run an experiment.”

What are you talking about? We repeat historical experiments all the time! After all, if something doesn’t work, it can’t be the *theory* that was wrong.

The sad part is that we keep repeating the *same* experiment!

Jan 20, 2009 - 12:45 pm 11. Brian Tiemann:

Dead to rights. I should have put it thus:

History is the most frustrating caricature of science: you never get to re-run an experiment under the same conditions.

If only we could be sure that the one variable we’re interested in exercising is the only thing that’s changed from one trial to the next…

Jan 20, 2009 - 2:13 pm 12. kaba:

BDS won’t end. It has just had a change of address to the leadership of the House, Senate, and Justice Dept. The show trials and stonings will begin in 3…2…1

Jan 20, 2009 - 5:45 pm 13. venividivici:

Now that President Bush is the ex-President, having peacefully and willingly turned over power to the opposition party, what becomes of sufferers of Bush Derangement Syndrome?

They become sufferers of ODS, Obama Disappointment Syndrome?

In my dream, they all kill themselves.

Jan 20, 2009 - 6:21 pm 14. Charlie (Colorado):

I guess, re #8, that we can expect them to continue to cling bitterly.

Jan 20, 2009 - 6:40 pm 15. jacksonhunted:

There is a third option, but BDS sufferers won’t admit it. BDS was a strategy. Make outrageous statements, tell outright lies, and froth endlessly and eventually the public believes there has to be something to the madness. Add to the mix a president who thought it above him to respond to these crazy left-wing bastards and it worked out pretty well for them.

The only upside is that they fear what they have sown.

Jan 20, 2009 - 7:51 pm 16. DebnDenver:

a third option? uh….ACCOUNTABILITY???

Jan 20, 2009 - 8:56 pm 17. arhooley:

Well, Keith Olbermann has made the adjustment. His “Bushed” segment will be called “Still Bushed.” I kid you not.

Jan 21, 2009 - 3:56 am 18. jon:

Economy: Bush fucked up.
Security: Bush fucked up.
Civil liberties: Bush fucked up.
Making the country better: Bush fucked up.
World better: Bush fucked up.

Is it really deranged to suggest that Bush wasn’t so good for the country? You can play “Compared to What?” all you want, but I really have a hard time suggesting that this administration was anything other than a failure of epic proportions that has set forth a precedent and agenda that will drive us faster toward a deeper economic black hole, hasn’t correctly focused on our real enemies, undermined our good standing in the world, and really didn’t give a damn. Bush Derangement Syndrome will soon be reclassified as clarity, regardless of the excesses of many of its earliest case study subjects.

Jan 21, 2009 - 6:32 am 19. rosignol:

Hey, jon… are you old enough to remember the ’70s?

I’m thinking ‘no’. If you were, you’d have a lot more perspective on just how bad presidential fuckups can get.

Jan 21, 2009 - 7:01 am 20. Black & Gold Brad:

Jon –

Bush fucked up civil liberties? Would that be the warrantless wiretapping that Obama voted for?

And yes, I keep forgetting how the ‘world’ was ‘less fucked up’ with Saddam and the Taliban in power, AQ Khan selling nuclear technology all over the place, Libya churning away with their WMD program, and Al Qaida in its ascendency and largely unchallenged. Um, yeah.

Seems the BDS’ers are definitely clinging bitterly.

Jan 21, 2009 - 7:58 am 21. Richard A Fay:

The most likely third option is to just continue attacking President Bush at every opportunity. Why not ? They’re still making movies about Nixon, and he’s been dead for years.

Jan 21, 2009 - 8:21 am 22. bgates:

#8 – you misspelled the word after “incompetent”.

PS from Jan 20-2001-Jan 20 2009 we had an unbroken string of AGs who never pardoned a terrorist and Treasury Secretaries who paid all their taxes.

#18 – Bush forged closer ties with India without hurting relations with China. That’s a pretty nice balancing act among the world’s three biggest countries. No major terrorist attacks in the US since 2001, and several plots broken up without any harm done to my civil rights or yours. Freeing 50 million from tyranny.

As far as “compared to what”, let’s revisit that subject in four years.

Jan 21, 2009 - 12:36 pm

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