Naked came the Emperor

I honestly don't know what's come over Kevin Drum these days. Take note of this recent post in which he chastises Robert Scheer for being intemperate in his criticism of Bush. To wit:

He's a smart guy and a talented writer, but he's too self-indulgent to modulate his tone based on his audience. He's got valuable op-ed real estate at his disposal, and the purpose of valuable op-ed real estate is to persuade doubters, not drive them into the hands of your enemies by confirming their worst fears about your own side.

Let's see if I understand the point he's making... people with doubts about the current administration's record might actually vote for Bush because Robert Scheer calls him a "shallow adventurer, a phony lightweight who has bled the Treasury dry while incompetently squandering the lives of young Americans in a needless imperial campaign"? Ooooh, Robert Scheer is a mean man, so I'm going to vote for the guy who's still claiming Saddam and Osama were best buds? Is that what you're saying, Kevin?

I well remember the months immediately following 9/11, not only for the national trauma, but for what appeared to me to be a national Post Traumatic Shock Syndrome. Suddenly, all criticism of the Glorious Leader became taboo. I felt like I had wandered into the Mirror Universe; everyone else was acting like Bush was a great statesman and all I could see was the same vain, incurious, shallow little man that had been there all along. Only once he began to launch his imperial adventures guided by the NPAC roadmap did the print media begin to oh-so-timidly and cautiously inject a note of warning. The first time I heard someone actually criticize the administration, I felt like cheering - I am not alone! there are others who can also see.

How quickly the story turned, not to the lunacy of the adminstration's policy, but to tut-tutting about the 'Bush Bashers', which morphed into 'Bush Haters', which in turn morphed into 'why do you hate America?'

Now on the left we are afflicted with a growing number of pundits telling us to 'moderate' our criticisms, lest we offend the undecided. Honestly, if someone is -truly- undecided (and I doubt there's as many undecideds as polls claim), do you think they're going to vote for more war and eternal deficits because commentators on the left are pointing out what a miserable failure the adminstration's policies have been in languange that might... Hurt Their Feelings?

Please. The Emperor not only has no clothes, he's been buck naked all along.