He Hated America

(The above quote might or might not actually be real.)

As the lunatics rave about President Obama's unAmericanism, about how he's been sent to destroy us all, with no evidence to point to (and lots they need to ignore on the opposite side of the ledger), we keep learning about how truly destructive was his predecessor, how he demonstrably DID do things counter to everything for which our country stands:

WASHINGTON — A former senior C.I.A. official says that officials in the Bush White House sought damaging personal information on a prominent American critic of the Iraq war in order to discredit him.

Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war.

In an interview, Mr. Carle said his supervisor at the National Intelligence Council told him in 2005 that White House officials wanted “to get” Professor Cole, and made clear that he wanted Mr. Carle to collect information about him, an effort Mr. Carle rebuffed. Months later, Mr. Carle said, he confronted a C.I.A. official after learning of another attempt to collect information about Professor Cole. Mr. Carle said he contended at the time that such actions would have been unlawful.

One word: Joewilsonvalerieplame.

I read Juan Cole a lot during the buildup and carrying out of the Iraq war. I found him to be thoughtful, knowledgeable, credible, and persuasive; an academic, not a frother-at-the-mouth. Which was the problem, I guess, for an administration that prided itself in breaking from the "reality-based community." It's the sort of thing that ought to send chills down the spine of every American, and most especially those conservative, Constitution-loving Republicans.

Yeah. Right.

I'd like to understand to what evidence those who claim Obama hates America would actually point. While they're preparing their response, I'll offer a little help: sadly, Obama has been continuing far too many of the destructive policies of George Bush. To the extent that he is, one could make the case that he's unAmerican, all right (and just for writing that, I could be in trouble, pitifully small blogger that I am.) Anyhow, that's what I find so incredible: those who see Obama as anti-America do so, it seems, based on some fever dream of his otherness, never raising his following of certain Bushian authoritarianism and wars, which, I guess, was okay as long as it was a white guy doing it. Instead, they imagine some plot so secret, so brilliant, so covert, that there's actually no evidence for it at all. Rescuing the auto industry: devious destruction. Turning around the trend of job losses: subtle subterfuge. Trying to get health care for all Americans: maniacal mendacity... well, I don't know what you can say about that... What more hateful goal could there be? I mean, the whole thing is dazzlingly devilish: destroy America by saving it. It's juicy genius. It's calamitous collusion. It's the opposite of Vietnam.

Ironically, it's the stuff President Obama is doing to continue the constitutionally questionable and militarily futile policies of George Bush that're the only areas in which a few conservatives have given him credit.

Explain that, will somebody?