Of course, there's something annoying and depressing about conservatives abandoning Bush, because, after all, everything awful about him was clearly visible in 2004, and things didn't have to go the way they did. But this Peggy Noonan column is a satisfying read anyway, and she gets off a couple good insights that might not be available to those of us who never fell for W's bullshit:
I suspect people pick up with Mr. Bush the sense that part of his drama, part of the story of his presidency, is that he gets to be the romantic about history, and the American people get to be the realists. Of the two, the latter is not the more enjoyable role.
Americans have always been somewhat romantic about the meaning of our country, and the beacon it can be for the world, and what the Founders did. But they like the president to be the cool-eyed realist, the tough customer who understands harsh realities.
With Mr. Bush it is the people who are forced to be cool-eyed and realistic. He's the one who goes off on the toots. This is extremely irritating, and also unnatural. Actually it's weird.
