VDH

Sorry, if I'm repeating news/stories from yesterday, but THEY'RE NEW TO ME.

Victor David Hanson, yesterday in the Corner:

All of which leaves us a final musing: If so, what was the hysteria of 2001-2008 about other than simple politics?

I doubt we get any more movies about ongoing renditions, redactions, any more Checkpoint-like novels, any more waterboarding skits and reenactments, any more late-night comedians doing their Bush tapped, intercepted, tortured, renditioned, tribunaled poor suspect X routines.

And I guess as well that the good old days of supposedly flushed Korans in Guantánamo and Omar the poor liberationist renditioned to Cairo are over. We are now in the age of a sober and judicious President Obama who circumspectly, if reluctantly and in anguish at the high cost, does what is necessary to keep us safe.

And we won't see a brave young liberal senator, Obama-like, barnstorming the Iowa precincts blasting a presidency for trampling our values with the shame of Guantánamo, wiretaps, intercepts, renditions, military tribunals, Predators, Iraq, etc. That motif just dissolved — or rather, it never really existed.

It short, all the fury, the vicious slander, the self-righteous outbursts, the impassioned speeches from the floor, the "I accuse" op-eds by the usual moralistic pundits — all that turned out to be solely about politics, nothing more.

H/t, again, Dan Collins.

Now that all the artistic energy in the United States is focused on fellating the One, we can thankfully say good-bye to all the moralizing movies and commentary from our Hollywood betters.

But, for those of you who who voted because you were against the War? Sorry. Obama wasn't really serious about that stuff. The guys aren't coming home any earlier. Gitmo? He'll get back to you. Wiretaps and the Patriot Act? BTW, those are legal and necessary.

No, the change is that Obama is a statist. He's working on taking all the power away from the little people (who keep fucking it up, apparently) and giving it those super-smart people in the Federal Government. Banks. Auto Industry. Cap and Trade. Health Insurance. Giving control of these things, to the Federal Government (for our own good, you know) is one step closer to Fascism. You can refuse to see it, but that just makes you dense.

We tried to follow the founding father's ideas about limiting the power of the Federal Government long enough, apparently. Now it's time for a "Constitutional Lawyer" President to throw that all away, in the biggest power grab since FDR.