[Mb-civic] MAX BOOT Down Deep, They Love the Guy

[Michael Butler]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-boot29jul29.story

MAX BOOT

Down Deep, They Love the Guy

For liberals, the livin' is easy while Bush is in office.
 Max Boot

 July 29, 2004

 The Democratic delegates in Boston are trying hard to be as sober, moderate
and unexciting as a case study at the Kennedy School of Government. They
don't want any unseemly emotions about the incumbent president to mar media
coverage of their convocation. But if they were being honest, in their heart
of hearts, they would have to admit Š they love George W. Bush.

 Oh, I know they have a funny way of showing it. But remember how back in
grade school, when a boy had a crush on a girl he would pull her pigtails?
That's the Democrats and Dubya. Sure, they may compare him to Adolf Hitler ‹
at least they do when they're not in Boston ‹ but, admit it, fellas, you
really like the big lug in the Oval Office.

 Politics is pretty boring unless you can be on the front lines, combating
the forces of evil. It's fun to work yourself up into a righteous lather and
imagine that you and your friends are the only thing preventing the dark
night of fascism from descending. It's exciting to imagine that you are
braving Uberfuhrer John Ashcroft's attempts to suppress dissent ‹ especially
when, unlike real dissidents in places like Burma and Iran, you don't face
any actual danger.

 It's fun, and profitable too. The Democrats may be right when they say the
Bush recovery has delivered most of its benefits to the "rich." What they
neglect to mention is how many liberal rabble-rousers are now in that
category, thanks to the president.

 That hoary old Stalinist organ, the Nation, has seen circulation soar more
than 50% since Bush took office. It actually made a profit last year. Isn't
that politically incorrect? Michael Moore is making out like Louis B. Mayer,
raking in more than a hundred million smackeroos with a film (I hesitate to
call it a documentary) that implies Bush invaded Afghanistan at the behest
of Big Oil. It may not make any sense, but who can argue with the bottom
line? 

 Half the books on the New York Times bestseller list seem to have titles
like "Worse Than Ebola: The Bush Virus Infects America." Every two-bit
leftist hack is picking up royalty checks that would make John Updike blush.
Anti-Bush "527" organizations like MoveOn and America Coming Together are
raising money as if they were Google.

 Naturally, when opportunity is in the air, Hollywood picks up the scent.
Every C-list has-been ‹ yes, that means you, Linda Ronstadt; you too, Whoopi
‹ is lining up to take a whack at the Bush piñata in hopes of landing a
better gig than "Hollywood Squares." At this rate, Charo will soon be
protesting the Patriot Act.

 If liberals want to know how good they have it these days, they should talk
to some conservatives. The right can look back nostalgically on the Clinton
presidency as a golden age when anyone with a conspiracy theory involving
mysterious doings in Arkansas could land a six-figure book deal and a radio
show. It wasn't long ago that the American Spectator was having the kind of
run now being enjoyed by the Nation.

 And, then, wham! 

 The election of Bush was for conservative activists what the crash of 2000
was for high-tech investors. Crazy right-wing polemicists have been elbowed
off the sales charts by crazy left-wing polemicists. Conservatives are left
to grumble quietly about all the things that Bush has done to make them
unhappy ‹ from his unwillingness to invite Tom DeLay to grace prime time at
the upcoming GOP convention to his willingness to spend your tax dollars as
if he were running a dot-com circa 1999. But the right can't roar too
loudly, because, after all, Bush is their guy. They have to protect him.

 The left may find itself in the same uncomfortable position before long. If
John Kerry wins, he'll inherit a deficit large enough to preclude the kind
of vast new social programs demanded by his base. Congress probably will be
so divided that he won't be able to legislate much of anything. The United
States will still have troops in Iraq that Kerry will be hard-pressed to
remove, even though 95% of Democratic delegates say they oppose the war. And
there remains a strong likelihood of a terrorist attack that will force
Kerry into a more forceful response than joining hands and singing "We Are
the World." 

 Bottom line: Governing is a drag. It involves compromises and trade-offs
that, to zealots, always seem to be sellouts. Protest is much more fun. If
the partygoers in Boston know what's good for them, they'll have the time of
their lives between now and November, hootin' and hollerin' about Bush, and
then quietly vote to give the ol' fascist four more years.


Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.




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