What's going on at National Review lately? Nothing but a good old fashioned pity-party.

In the words of the whiny little boy Rich Lowry that the NR calls an editor -

Sometimes a political figure becomes so hated that he can't do anything right in the eyes of his enemies. President Bush has achieved this rare and exalted status. His critics are so blinded by animus that the internal consistency of their attacks on him no longer matters. For them, Bush is the double-bind president.

Little Richie goes on to complain and whine and victimize Bush like I thought only a true liberal could. Let's examine what he's whining about a little more in-depth.

If he stumbles over his words, he is an embarrassing idiot. If he manages to cut taxes or wage a war against Saddam Hussein with bipartisan support, he is a manipulative genius.

Damn these ivory-tower elitist bastards for wanting their president to be able to speak english! Let's just jump to the logical conclusion here and elect Seabiscuit as President in '04. And I'm afraid, Mr. Lowry, that you've assembled a false "double bind" here... everyone who has heard the man speak knows that President Bush says idiotic things, and I am yet to hear anyone call George Bush anything even resembling a "genius." Anyone who reasonably is opposed to offensively invading a sovereign nation should not credit Bush for his "strength" or "cunning" in bringing Democratic and Republican idiots together to do the wrong thing, but should blame Democrats for not taking a stand against what was clearly wrong.

If he hasn't been able to capture Osama bin Laden, he is endangering U.S. security. If he catches bin Laden, it is only a ploy to influence the elections.

This might be a reasonable "double bind" situation that Bush is in, but he created it for himself by taking resources from the battle against those responsible for 9/11 (Osama and al-Qaeda) and using them in Iraq, which has been repeatedly proven and re-proven not to have any ties to 9/11. And yes, the $124 billion wasted in Iraq definitely would help in finding Osama. If Bush hadn't waited THREE YEARS after 9/11, until the election season, there would be no question of his motives when he caught Osama.

If he ignores U.N. resolutions, he is a dangerous unilateralist. If he takes U.N. resolutions on Iraq seriously, he is a dangerous unilateralist.

Oh Rich, how did you get so good at spinning? No wonder you write for the NR. Of course, if Bush ignores numerous fundamental U.N. Resolutions clearly stating that it is unacceptable to attack a sovereign nation without provocation in order to re-interpret a relatively peripheral, vague U.N. resolution regarding Iraq, and then acts on his extreme individual interpretation UNILATERALLY, that would indeed make him a dangerous unilateralist. Although I must commend Rich Lowry on his amazing ability to skew and skew so that asinine ideas seem self-evident, these statements are indeed asinine.

If he bombed Iraq, he should have bombed Saudi Arabia instead, and if he had bombed Saudi Arabia, he should have bombed Iran, and if he had bombed all three, he shouldn't have bombed anyone at all. If he imposes a U.S. occupation on Iraq, he is fomenting Iraqi resistance by making the United States seem an imperial power. If he ends the U.S. occupation, he is cutting and running.

NO NO NO Rich! No one said he should have bombed Saudi Arabia instead! No one said he should have bombed Iran, and certainly no one said to bomb all three... lets hop off the spin machine once more and recognize that people brought up comparisons with Saudi Arabia because unlike Iraq, Saudi Arabia did have demonstrable ties to 9/11. The point is not that we should have bombed all of them; the point is that going into Iraq made no sense, and more specifically, it made even less sense than invading Saudi Arabia (which no one would even argue to do). Invading Iraq made as much sense as invading Times Square looking for a good ski resort. That is the point. Once again, Bush created this difficult situation by doing something he shouldn't have.

If he warns of a terror attack, he is playing alarmist politics. If he doesn't warn of a terror attack, he is dangerously asleep at the switch. If he says we're safer, he's lying, and if he doesn't say we're safer, he's implicitly admitting that he has failed in his core duty as commander in chief.

Of course Bush should warn of terror attacks, but more important than that, he should work to protect our country from terrorists. Like by, lets say, spending some of that wasted $124 billion on defense as opposed to offense. Instead of recruiting terrorists like mad with your idiotic foreign policy, and then screaming that there's a terrorist coming, STOP THE DAMN TERRORIST. As for Lowry's next little gem, if Bush says we're safer, he is lying, because we aren't, because we've turned the world against us, destablized Iraq, and recruited thousands of new terrorists with our stupid, unilateral actions. This entire "double bind" is ridiculous. Lets say some guy punches you in the face. Obviously, if he says he didn't, he's lying. And if he doesn't deny doing it, he's admitting to having punched you. What's so miraculous about this? This is your amazing, logically inconsistent "double bind", Lowry? Get a new job.

If he signs a far-reaching antiterror law, he is abridging civil liberties. If the United States suffers another terror attack on his watch, he should have had a more vigorous anti-terror law.

How about we try making an antiterror law that doesn't abridge civil liberties?!?!? What a novel idea! I mean, I don't know if it's possible for this to remain a free country like it has for hundreds of years if we just let people run around and not have the government spy on them and check their library records and read their emails... I mean we haven't been able to pull that off for hundreds of years, in fact, that isn't the ENTIRE POINT OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF OUR COUNTRY, is it?

I won't touch on the economic issues, because, as we should all know, other than running the biggest deficit in history, I don't take issue with Bush's economic policies. Let's end on this note though --

If he doesn't admit a mistake, he is bullheaded and detached from reality. If he admits a mistake, he is damning his own governance in shocking fashion.

Well I think the problem here is that first off, the man has never admitted a single mistake. And on top of that, he's made more mistakes than he could probably ever apologize for. This stunning "double bind" by Lowry falls into the same category of obvious nonsense disguised as profound thought as the problem of "lying vs. admitting failure in national security."

The lesson to be learned from this? If Rich Lowry can write idiotic trash like this and be an editor for a printed publication such as the NR, this world is more full of idiots than one could ever imagine.

Before I finish, though, I'd like to take a moment and shed a tear for those poor little boys in the White House, and to congratulate Rich Lowry, the one neocon brave enough to whine like an obnoxious feminist bookstore-owning lesbian.