Blaming Bush for Making Us Blame Bush

Over in Slate , Jacob Weisberg writes a piece about how Obama’s insanities in foreign policy derive from his sane desire to be the anti-Bush.

Bush, you see, was so bad that he’s still making Obama make mistakes. The evil of Bush was so evil that, in recoiling from it, the righteous understandably go too far in the opposite direction. Thus, for example:

Surely if not for Bush, Obama’s instinct after the Iranian election would have been to identify with those risking their lives to free their country, not to get back to his attempt at dialogue with Ahmadinejad.

George Bush is a lot like Global Warming: He’s the explanation for everything that goes wrong. When it’s hot—Bush did it. And when it’s cold—Bush still did it.