E Pluribus Unum

Krugman:

if you're a former worshipful admirer of George W. Bush who now says, as [Andrew] Sullivan did at Cato, that "the people in this administration have no principles," you're taking a courageous stand. If you said the same thing back when Mr. Bush had an 80 percent approval rating, you were blinded by Bush-hatred.

I forgot who pointed it out, but the brilliance of Karl Rove is that he pinpoints a weakness in his candidate, then accuses his opponent of that same weakness, attacking and defeating him over it.

You can see his disciples have learned well -- e.g., Ken Mehlman "indicts" the Democrats for having no leadership.

This actually makes a guy like Joe Scarborough look like a statesman when he says this the same day:

The lack of leadership in Washington, D.C., is sickening. If you look at what Republicans did--promised to do in 1994, when they took control of Congress, and see, how they've been acting over the past three or four years, the biggest debt and deficit ever. They are irresponsible and reckless on so many levels. I'm embarrassed right now to be a Republican. It's a disgrace because of the lack of leadership.

Nice. Except where was Joe 2 or three years ago when it was obvious that Bush didn't know what he was doing? Never mind, you already know the answer.

And, I hate to say it, but regarding Tim McGraw and Faith Hill -- where were they when their fans were burning Dixie Chicks CDs not so long ago?

The fact is, when Democrats said it 2-3 years ago they were branded "shrill" and "shrieking" "Bush-haters." Republican/shrink/pundit Charles Krauthammer even invented "Bush derangement syndrome" to explain it.

Hunter:

If George W. Bush is an idiot now, then he was an idiot then, too. He didn't change, and neither did his stream of uber-conservative advisors, and neither did any of his conscience-scratching new critics. To only see it now doesn't restore their lost credibility. It only shows how thorougly in the tank they were, and how eager they are to extricate themselves now. It shows that the so-called tenets of conservatism are, in truth, a mere millimeter deep. Or maybe it just shows that incompetence and conservatism go so hand-in-hand as to be indistinguishable from each other.

I'm just saying.