Reason Writers Around Town: Matt Welch in the New York Post on Liberals Attacking Obama
Obama Derangement Syndrome really has gotten out of hand, Reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch writes in today's New York Post.
Why, just this past week the decreasingly popular president has been called a "bald-faced liar," "an executive who can't bring himself to lead," and even an "Uncle Tom."
And that's just by liberals. […]
But let's also give some credit where it's due. Conservatives didn't get around to hating on George W. Bush until after he'd safely been elected to a second term. There were no tea parties in the streets 14 months ago, when the 43rd president rushed through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, on the heels of an eight-year spending and regulatory binge (including vast new medical entitlements) the likes of which hadn't been seen since Lyndon Johnson. […]
Yet there are lessons we can all learn from Obama's lost year. Chief among them is the insight that when you project all your hopes, desires, and even fears onto a Rorschach test of a politician — whether Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, or otherwise — not only are you bound to be disappointed, you might just deserve it, too. Government officials use force and the threat thereof to impact our lives, not always (or even most of the time) for the better, so it behooves all citizens to get over their schoolyard crushes and figure out just what their objects of political desire plan to do with all that power.