When love goes sour
It was so wonderful for left-wing Democrats back before Obama was elected: their Messiah-candidate promised to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, investigate the CIA, and even …maybe, just maybe, in their most cherished dreams… go after the evil Bush and Cheney themselves.
But then Obama actually won, and the reality of governing set in. He found he couldn’t fulfill the Moonbat wish list and, so, he made compromises. But compromise is anathema to those who demand purity; the Left is feeling betrayed and they are punishing Obama for it:
It was a lot of fun while it lasted, up to election night 2008 and Inauguration Day 2009. But then Obama had to govern. Knowing little of military affairs, he retained Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has loyally served presidents of both parties. Understanding even if not admitting the great headway Americans had made in Iraq, Obama declined to throw it all away.
Appreciating that Afghanistan was critical to protecting Americans, he made a commitment to increase troop levels there in May 2009, reconsidered it from August to November, then restated it Dec. 1, with a commitment to begin withdrawals in July 2011.
In so doing, Obama implicitly confessed that the view of the world held with quasi-religious fervor by the Democratic left was delusional all along. Bush didn’t lie, we didn’t go into Afghanistan and Iraq without allies and against their wishes, we didn’t carry out policies of torture, etc. The effort to cast Iraq as another Vietnam and America under Bush as an oppressive rogue power were perhaps emotionally satisfying but unconnected to reality.
And so the legions of ObamaTots are not enthused about voting, their dreams exposed for the childish fantasies they were, and the big donors’ checkbooks remain closed. I suppose I could be gentlemanly and make sympathetic noises toward those who rooted against their own country in time of war, but why disguise my enjoyment of the sweet, sweet schadenfreude?
(Crossposted at Public Secrets)