Missing Person

Victor Davis Hanson observes the decline of Bush derangement speech: "Apparently the erstwhile divider is now the healer that the healer Obama is not." Hanson lists 10 reasons why America misses George W. Bush; here's two of them:

2) Obama as Bush. Senator and then candidate Obama demagogued Bush on a variety of issues, which, as president, he simply flipped and endorsed. Remember Bush’s gulag at Guantanamo? Or how about the terror-producing Predators? Or the need for an immediate pull-out from Iraq? Or those terrible renditions and tribunals?

In case after case of national security, Obama dropped the cheap rhetorical one-upmanship, and, when invested with the responsibility of governance, simply adopted, or even trumped, the Bush protocols. General Petraeus, whose testimony Hillary once suggested required "a suspension of disbelief" and whom Obama cut off and did not allow to speak during his infamous 2007 Senate hearing, suddenly is to be Obama’s savior general.

Candidate Obama claimed the surge failed and all combat troops should be out of Bush’s Iraq war by March 2008. President Obama now calls Iraq a "remarkable chapter" as his vice president claims it as one of the administration’s "greatest achievements." In short, almost daily, Obama is following the Bush anti-terrorism policies -- the irony made worse by petulance and ingratitude in not acknowledging his debt.

3) Bush Did It. It is a uniquely American trait to shun whining and petulance. Rugged individualism and can-do optimism used to be ingrained in our national character, and even in our 11th hour have not wholly disappeared. So the public is tiring of Obama’s Pavlovian blaming of Bush. After 20 months, it is time for the president to get a life and quit the "heads you lose/tails I win" attitude about presidential responsibility. If he now takes credit for calm in Iraq without crediting the surge, then Obama can surely take blame for the anemic recovery -- brought on by his own bullying of business that has frightened free enterprise into stasis. Note that Bush, unlike Clinton, has not engaged in emeritus tit-for-tat recrimination, and has kept largely quiet in dignified repose. Obama serially goes after Hannity, Limbaugh, and Beck by name; Bush let the slander of a Michael Moore or Keith Olbermann go unanswered.

Read the whole thing.

(via reader Doug)