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Quick Note on Clarke and Right-Leaning Blogs
...So why aren't right-learning bloggers being more honest with themselves that Clarke is kicking the hell out of the Bush administration -- and that he's using the Bush administration's own inclinations toward paranoia and secrecy against them, i.e., hoisting them on their own petard? I mean, come on, now: Even if you don't agree with Clarke's message that the Bush administration is staffed with incompetents, at least you can admire the craft with which the message has been delivered. The Bushies have been defending themselves against the same guy for ten days now -- ten days! Even Bush's pathetic deflective attempt to gain goodwill by tossing up the idea of broadband for everybody by 2007 was shown to be just that -- deflective and pathetic. Come on, right-wing bloggers, just come out and admit it: Clarke is beating the Bush administration like a festive piñata. You'll feel better when you do. And you'll get candy!

But I doubt they will, and here's why: Most right-wing bloggers I read are either generally neutral on Bush or actually sort of dislike him for every other thing except the War on Terror -- but their focus on that War on Terror is such that when it comes to it, they're willing to put up with everything else -- the contempt for most Americans, particularly the ones who are not rich, the fundamental disregard for entire swaths of the Constitution, the unseemly theocratic leanings -- because they believe Bush's actions since 9/11 have kept them safe; the entirety of their political thinking, therefore, can be summed up in the words "There's a War On." If Bush is in fact shown to have been negligent or incompetent in the execution of this war, what happens is that these poor folks are going to have their noses rubbed in the fact they've willingly compromised every other important political position they have in order to put their trust in someone in whom that trust was entirely unwarranted. In short, they'll look like they're naive dumbasses. For the sake of their own personal political self-image, they have to defend Bush's war on terror to the bitter, contradictory end. ...