VDH Friday

As always Victor Davis Hanson is informative, insightful and on the mark:

There are a number of issues in this contest on which reasonable people can differ. If one is out of work or without comprehensive health insurance, then the economy is rocky, to be measured not by historically low unemployment figures but by the number of actual jobs lost or gained. For others more fortunate, by any fair measure of housing, transportation, or consumer goods, the United States has achieved a standard of living well beyond even that of Europe.

One can argue that the post-bellum reconstruction of Iraq was unforeseeably messy and fouled-up. Or, one can argue that it's striking that after a mere three years the United States has liberated 50 million and implemented democratic reform in place of what were the two most fascistic governments in the world — all without another 9/11 mass murder.

Furthermore, our troubles with Europe can be seen as either provoking tried and tested friends or lancing a boil that was growing for years as a result of our different histories, the end of the Cold War, and the utopianism of the EU. We could all disagree further about education, illegal immigration, energy policy, taxation, and a host of other issues.

But what is not explicable in terms of rational disagreement is the Left's pathological hatred of George W. Bush. It transcends all contention over the issues, the Democratic hurt over the Florida elections, and even the animus once shown Bill Clinton by the activist Right. From where does this near-religious anger arise and what does it portend?