Old habits die hard

My name is Indira, and I’m suffering from Bush Withdrawal Syndrome, otherwise known as BWS.  

The symptoms began a few days after the inauguration of President Obama, and the condition has only gotten worse.

What’s wrong with me?

Here I am, presented with a charismatic and competent leader who can actually string two coherent sentences together, but I’m not having any of it. Much like the millions of college Democrats who suddenly found themselves with a lot of free time after the presidential elections, I’ve been yearning for the simpler times.

You remember them, don’t you?

I’ll say it – I miss being lied to. I miss the hypocrisy, the feeling of being talked down to, but most of all I miss marveling at the sheer stupidity that the Republican Party has wrought lately.  

Now, don’t get me wrong. If Obama had lost the general election, I would have packed up my belongings and fled to Canada. The Democrats’ resounding victory meant that a select group of lazy liberal columnists – including me – had their work cut out for them.

Recalling the last couple of years, it was so much easier to blame Republicans, particularly President Bush, for the world’s problems because, well, they seemed to cause most of them. But now that the party is at risk of becoming everybody’s favorite regional party and Bush seems to have retired from the public arena, my job has ceased to be as effortless as it used to be.
I’m running out of column ideas, folks.  

To be sure, in listening to media reports and intellectual heavyweights like Rush Limbaugh, it certainly seems that the Democrats have problems of their own.

I’ll readily admit that, true to form, the Democratic Party has given us plenty to complain about lately. Departing from his promise to deliver change, President Obama has continued to appoint Washington insiders to key government positions, including Tim Geithner and Lawrence Summers. He’s even broken his pledge to ban lobbyists from his administration with his nomination of William Lynn, a lobbyist for the defense contractor Raytheon, for deputy secretary of defense.

It’s also embarrassing that a party that repeatedly calls for more government spending seems to have missed the memo on paying taxes. A further point of disappointment has been the Democrats’ willingness to continue caving to Republicans on essential measures in the stimulus package. As I understand it, conservatives lack credibility on economic issues, particularly “fiscal responsibility,” so I’m a little perplexed as to why they even get a fair hearing.

That being said, until President Obama lies us into an unwinnable war, systematically dismantles this country’s democratic structure and conducts a daily assault on the English language, we’re going to be OK.

It seems that for the last few years, I’ve thoughtlessly dismissed the Bush presidency as a great source of ire and embarrassment. But now that he’s disappeared from the public eye, I’m beginning to miss the very idea of him.

Perhaps I misunderestimated him after all.