"What exactly is Bush Derangement Syndrome?

Is it the bitter feeling ordinary Americans feel when they see an administration trampling on civil liberties in the name of protecting them from an enemy it failed to defend against the first time around? (An enemy who must have watched in glee as an American city drowned while the federal government chased its tail.) Is it the outrage at a "leader" who has presided over the collapse of America's reputation? Is it fury at a White House that dishonors our military by launching a war based on blatant deceptions? Is it the resistance to the breakdown of the rule of law? Is it the refusal to wade into the ethical swamp of human rights violations in the name of fighting terror?"

Perhaps Bush Derangement Syndrome is what afflicts rightwing bloggers, eager as they are to defend policies so clearly antithetical to genuine conservatism that it would be grimly amusing if the stakes weren't so high. Members of this administration - hiding behind a tattered veil of self-ascribed nobility - are doing what so many other people in positions of power do: they are abusing that power. And rightwingers who should know better that to enable it do so out of sheer hatred for liberals, a hatred stoked by the Limbaughs and Coulters and Hannitys of this world and exacerbated by lily-livered mainstream reporters who willingly weave rightwing storylines. Meanwhile, Democratic leaders would rather focus-group cheap slogans than grab the bull by the horns and lead America out of this mess.