How Do You Fight a War When the Opposition Party Hates Your Guts?

Another perceptive column from Jeff Jacoby.

But to a large extent, the Democrats’ lack of seriousness about the war we are in can only be explained by Bush Derangement Syndrome. The term was coined by commentator Charles Krauthammer, a former psychiatrist, who defines it as “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency -- nay, the very existence of George W. Bush.”

What if not derangement can explain such fever-swamp nuttiness as the findings of a new Rasmussen poll, which asked whether Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance? Among Democrats, 35 percent believe he did know and another 26 percent weren’t sure. Only 39 percent said he didn’t. In other words, nearly two out of three Democrats are unwilling to say that Bush wasn’t tipped off to 9/11 in advance.

In another poll recently, respondents were asked whether they personally wanted Bush’s new security strategy in Iraq to succeed -- not whether they expected it to, but whether they wanted it to. Among Democrats, a stunning 49 percent either hope that the United States will be defeated in Iraq or can’t decide one way or the other. Only 51 percent, a bare majority, want the American effort against al-Qaeda in Iraq to end in victory.

As long as the 43rd president remains in office, it seems, a significant number of Americans will be so consumed with Bush-hatred that they will be unable to acknowledge -- let alone help defeat -- the real evil that confronts us all. Will they come to their senses after Jan. 20, 2009? And even if they do, will it be too late?

There is in fact little hope that the Democrats, should they win the presidency in 2008, will begin to act better.

They are so utterly invested in wanting this war lost that they will fall all over themselves surrendering.