Has Bush-bashing gone too far?

We love to laugh at the misfortune of others. It's a piece of human nature. That's why blooper reels, banana peels and "Family Guy" are funny. We have even incorporated a German word to describe this very phenomenon, schadenfreude, into semi-common usage. I mean, that's all "The Daily Show" really does.\nYet, when this extends to the real political realm, I think we get into rather murky territory, both abstractly and pragmatically. As a liberal, I feel a certain duty to make catty comments about President Bush constantly. Every time he poorly conjugates a verb, I grin. When a bad Bush policy initiative stalls, I laugh. But sometimes, the liberal hate of the Almighty Bush becomes our own misfortune, making us both hypocrites and idiots.\nWhen Iraq had possible weapons programs, the United States acted unilaterally, with a massive military operation and a very loose coalition of allies. Liberals, myself included, howled, "We should've gone to the international community! We should've gone to the United Nations! We should've negotiated!"\nNow, Iran has a possible nuclear weapons program, and the Bush Administration seems to have learned a lesson. We're negotiating through the European Union, working multilaterally and trying to avoid bringing a direct threat to Iran. We're trying to delay and weaken a U.N. Security Council resolution that would bring sanctions or military action against Iran. We're trying to exercise subtle and nuanced foreign policy towards a complicated enemy.\nSubtlety? Nuance? I'm sorry, did I miss something? Yes, I know that this dovish behavior might simply be a result of the Iraq debacle, but it is exactly how we pinko liberals wanted to handle things before the Iraq war, isn't it? We should be positively gleeful for this occurrence.\nYet, last week, we had Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., saying that "we lost critical time in dealing with Iran because the White House chose to downplay the threats and to outsource the negotiations." Come again? So when Bush invades Iraq, he's a unilateral gun-slinging cowboy, leading the gang who couldn't shoot straight, but when Bush negotiates with Iran through Europe and multilateralism, he's an impotent, bumbling wuss? I love to watch Bush fail, but when it comes to Iran and nuclear weapons, I'm less eager to giggle.\nMeanwhile, Democrats elsewhere are simply confused. We're so eager to ambush this administration for its various crimes, but when it does something we agree with, we're at a loss for words. We want Bush to be wrong so much that we're backing ourselves into a corner, and also advancing the viewpoint that there are very limited options when it comes to dealing with Iran.\nI'm not sure how to deal with Iran or whether I agree with the president. Luckily, college undergraduates don't decide foreign policy for this country. We just complain unrelentingly about it, and it's just so easy to score a few points on Bush while he's not around. Yet, before the United States judges with the schadenfreude of our partisan glee, it must evaluate all plans dealing with Iran, because any blunder or miscommunication on our part could lead to a nuclear Iran.\nAnd that won't be funny for anyone.