Goodbye the the "Honeymoon" Concept Regarding the Presidency

From Glenn Reynolds' mail bag; a missive he finds "depressing"—

I consider myself a libertarian/conservative. Like many people of that bent, I was uncomfortable with Bush when he was nominated. But Al Gore's increasingly-erratic behavior during the 2000 election made me hope Bush [would win].

Once Bush won, and it became clear that the Florida democrats were trying to steal the election, I became something of a Bush loyalist. Throughout his first term, I took note of all the really horrible things that were said about him, saw that a large portion of the left would rather see Bush fail than see America succeed, and was alarmed by the complicity (and often, participation) of the MSM and mainstream Hollywood. It wasn't far into his second term that I succumbed to Bush Fatigue, due to his inability to make the case for his foreign policy to the American people, and his inability to find the veto pen. He has truly been a terrible steward of the Republican brand, and because of this, the Conservative and libertarian causes are suffering.

I'm no fan of McCain , but as I dislike Obama (and love Palin), I'll be pulling the lever for McCain in November.

This is surely small of me, but if Obama wins, I plan on giving him as much of a chance as the Democrats gave George Bush. I will gleefully forward every paranoid anti-Obama rumor that I see, along with YouTube footage of his verbal missteps. I will laugh and email heinous anti-Obama photoshop jobs, and maybe even learn photoshop myself to create some. I'll buy anti-Obama books, and maybe even a "Not My President" t-shirt. I'm sure that the mainstream bookstores won't carry them, but I'll be on the lookout for anti-Obama calendars and stuff like that. I will not wish America harm, and if the country is hurt (economically, militarily, or diplomatically) I will truly mourn. But i will also take some solace that it occurred under Obama's watch, and will find every reason to blame him personally and fan the flames.

Obama's thuggish behavior thus far in this election cycle—squashing free speech, declaring any criticism of his policies to be "racist" (a word that happily carries little weight with sensible people these days), associating with the likes of Ayers, Wright, and ACORN—suggests that I won't have to scrape for reasons to really viscerally dislike Obama and his administration. And even if he wins, his campaign's "get out the vote fraud" activities are enough to provide people like me with a large degree of "plausible deniability" as to whether he is actually legitimately the President.

I've seen a President that I [was] generally inclined to like get crapped on for eight years, and I've seen McCain and Palin (honorable people both, despite policy differences I may have with them) get crapped on through this election season. If the Democrats think that a President Obama is going to get some sort of honeymoon from the folks who didn't vote for him—as a wise man once said: heh.

[Reynolds responds:]

I understand where he's coming from, but . . . . Well, it makes me sad to think that this is where we are. Personally, if Obama's elected I intend to give him a chance and weigh him on his actions, not his party. But I agree that he's not likely to get much of a honeymoon—except from the press, which has been giving him one for about a year already.

UPDATE: Reader Ben Ellington emails:

I'm sad with you, but Mr. Gately's doing nothing more than describing the new rules of engagement as far as politics are concerned. If there was anything close to an honest and unbiased media in this country, those attacks just wouldn't work. But, the mainstream media is so far to the left that it fuels talk radio on the right, and their respective audiences just aren't interested in listening to one another any more.

I'm kind of looking forward to seeing how Obama takes it.

I'm guessing badly, in the event.

. . . Another reader emails:

Much though I dislike continuing a highly charged partisan atmosphere, Donald has it right in this case. Democrats cannot and should not expect Obama to receive any sort of honeymoon from McCain voters this cycle based on their behavior, and as I've often heard you say, don't reward behavior that you don't want to encourage.

Yes, the Angry Left schtick seems to have worked for the Dems, which suggests that if the GOP finds itself out of power it will emulate it.

[Joy here again]
As long as Christians and Jews don't take to decapitation/censorship of those who criticize their faiths; that would be going, I think, just a bridge too far in emulating the behavior of one's opposition.

Via Wolking's World, who remarks:

Funny, but I was just thinking the same thing yesterday.

Oh, and don't forget [those] "Sarah Palin is a c*nt" T-shirts.

Boy, this Messianic Post-Partisan Bringer of Hope and Change is really working miracles, isn't he?

In fact, the very aura that he is imparting to the nation is actually starting to look like his record.

(Cross-posted at Right Wing News.)