“Destroying a president is not much of a strategy to win a war, but it’s all the Democrats have. The churls of the left don’t seem to care whether their country wins the war, the important thing is to ‘keep hate alive.’ If hate worked in ‘06, maybe it will work again in ‘08, when the stakes will be considerably higher. Sometimes it’s not only hate, but a bit of schadenfreude, too, taking pleasure in the woes of the enemy. ‘Partisan pleasure in George Bush’s pain dates to the anguish of the contested 2000 election loss,’ observes Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal. ‘The Democrats have run against something called ‘Bush’ for so long this sentiment is now bound up in any act or policy remotely attached to the president. Iraq’s troubles, or Iran or North Korea, are merely an artifact of crushing this one guy.’ The president’s tormentors in Congress, some old and some new, insist they don’t have anything against the fine young Americans with their lives on the line in Iraq, but the troops are dispensable to the larger partisan goal of destroying George W. and abdicating the responsibility that comes with being the world’s only superpower. If the troops are hurt, too, well, that’s just a risk the critics will have to endure.” —Wesley Pruden