It's not just the cartoonists with their demeaning sketches and degrading captions. The editorialists are morphing into Maureen Dowds, as if in a contest to see which one of them can describe the current scene with the least connection to reality, and even less to common decency, good cheer or the slightest hint of optimism.
The op-ed pages are even more pregnant with anti-Bush screeds than before the election. As just one example, Sydney Blumenthal, former Clinton senior advisor, had plenty of venom to spew in his latest Salon.com column. After detailing how the Bush administration exploited, deceived and cashiered Colin Powell, Blumenthal savaged Condoleezza Rice as an incompetent, opportunistic backstabber.
Blumenthal wrote, "As incompetent as she was at her actual job, she was as agile at bureaucratic positioning. Early on she figured out how to align with the neoconservatives and to damage Powell. Her usurpation is a lesson to him in blind ambition and loyalty."
And of the administration, Blumenthal said, "In this strange Soviet Washington, a system of bureaucratic fear and one-party allegiance has been created in which only loyalists are rewarded. Rice stands as the model. One can never be too loyal. And the loyalists compete to outdo each other. Dissonant information is seen as motivated to injure the president -- disloyalty bordering on treason. Success is defined as support for the political line, failure as departure from the line. An atmosphere of personal vendetta and an incentive system for suppressing realities prevail. This is not an administration; it does not administer -- it is a regime."
Sydney and his cohorts need to get a grip. President Bush hasn't suddenly acquired a newfound disrespect for the limitations of his office. The Bush-bashers would be well to remember that we're still in the United States, and the president is operating and will continue to, under lawful authority.
If he exceeds his authority, there are proper checks in place to deal with that. But merely exerting his authority, which is all he is doing, is not abusing it. If these poison penners don't quit crying wolf over nothing every other minute, they'll lose what little credibility they have left.