THE ABUSIVE SPOUSE MOVES OUT

by Steve Young

This is my final Lords of Loud column written during the Bush era. While I was no admirer of this president, I was in awe of his consistency. No matter how many chances he was given to make the past eight years somewhat bearable, he (mostly) chose to do the opposite of what the American people wanted. He called them tough decisions. His favorability ratings called them wrong.

Many in the right wing have called it Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS), believed to be originally coined by Anything Not Far-Right Derangement Syndrome (ANFRDS) sufferer, neo-con pundit Charles Krauthammer. BDS was "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency -- the very existence of George W. Bush," according to Krauthammer. Sure, there are those who blanket-hate the President. But the Right's noise machine insists that anyone who doesn't worship the guy has an open-and-shut case of BDS.

Problem with Krauthammer's assertion is that the polls show that vitriol lobbed towards this president grew louder with every year in office. Why did we fall out of love? Was it just because the dew had fallen off the rose, or was it because we became tired of making excuses for him? Sometimes it was like the nightmare of living in a small town where everyone knew your husband was an abusive, dangerous drunk, yet you couldn't find a lawyer courageous enough to file for divorce.

Sorry, Krauthammer, but the problem was that our love was unrequited; this President and his administration didn't give a damn about what we thought. Bush, Cheney and their minions were famous for the "we don't pay attention to the polls" style of administering their duties. The fault was with Them, never Us.

Yet the Right has chosen to ignore facts (unusual, huh?) and has made BDS a key symptom of anti-American dementia.

Bill O'Reilly spent half his show this past week asking his objective pundits -- Glenn Beck and Bernie Goldberg -- to explain: Does the Angry Left senselessly hate President Bush or are they just sick? This sort of "When did you stop beating your wife" question is at the core of most talk radio debate. It doesn't open the discussion for actual...discussion. For if it did, they'd be discussing lost lives in Katrina and Iraq: vice presidents who feel that "I think so," is an appropriate answer to whether 4,500 American soldiers and 100,000 Iraqis dead was worth invading Iraq; that torture was approved; that covert American spies could be outed (and by their own government); that environmental standards could be eliminated; that justices selected were being chosen politically ; that...oh hell, I guess I'm just being all emotional.

But at least it's finally over. Oh, the Bushies have spent the last few weeks trying to cuddle up, asking us to remember them well, whispering that it really wasn't so bad, after all. Well, it was. Goodbye, don't call, don't write, and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.