As the serial donnybrooks on this here blog illustrate, the Syria issue is dividing the hard left, medium left, soft left, just-right left, terminally centrist, etc. Might I offer a particularly smug Bush dead-ender to unite us all again for a moment of shared derision? Glenn Harlan Reynolds, ladies and germs, government teat-sucker / Galt wannabe and libertarian / neo-con:
Say what you will about George W. Bush’s diplomacy, but he nurtured relationships with our most important allies — like Britain — and managed to put together a huge multinational coalition for his own foray against an Arab dictator suspected of having chemical weapons. Obama’s diplomatic efforts — championed by Hillary Clinton and, now, John Kerry — are looking more and more inept by comparison: So far, our only ally in the proposed Syria venture is France, maybe.
I can say what I will about George W. Bush’s diplomacy? Good, here goes: He lied us into a ruinous, catastrophic war that killed tens of thousands of people, bankrupted America while enriching his cronies, burned our allies and tanked our global prestige so badly that it’s nothing short of a fucking miracle that any subsequent American president, including Barack Obama, could get the French on board for a resolution to discourage tourists at the Louvre from defacing the Mona Lisa with a Sharpie.
Reynolds goes on:
But that’s what happens when your diplomacy is a failure.
No, that’s what happens when the president’s immediate predecessor was an unindicted, unconvicted fucking war criminal, Glenn. It means we can’t have nice things, like broad international coalitions and federal budget surpluses.
I get why Team Obama didn’t go after the Bushies for their crimes, I really do, and I can accept that we have to live with the consequences and lack of justice. But it’s a little much to have that odious organization’s cheerleaders crawl out of the woodwork so soon and pretend that the GWB administration wasn’t an utter and complete disaster on virtually every front.
They’ll need a MIB neuralyzer to pull that shit off. Lacking that, Reynolds & Co. might want to mothball the Bush triumphalism for a generation or so and spring it on the freshman class of 2033. The W stench may have cleared by then. We’re still choking on it at the moment.