The Oblivious Partisan

Partisanship is a funny thing. Most of us who care about politics are guilty of it to greater or lesser degrees. Even those of us who make a real effort to be fair-minded have a natural tendency to give the benefit of the doubt to those we consider to be on "our side" and to be quick to criticize those on the "other side." I know I'm guilty of this at times.

On the far extreme, though, there are people like Karl Rove, who are willing to make any argument they perceive to be in their immediate partisan advantage, without any regard for consistency. These people are shameless, but they know it.

Then there are people like Victor Davis Hanson of the National Review, who is relentlessly partisan, but also obsessed with pointing out how partisan he believes everyone else is. It's truly bizarre. In this post, for instance, Hanson finally gets around to addressing the people who have been critical of his stream of cynical posts this week criticizing President Obama's handling of the situation in Iran. He writes:

It is quite amazing to see the various, sometimes conservative, explanations that most liberal (including some rather extreme leftist) pundits have suddenly advanced to support the president's mostly do-nothing, say-nothing policy on Iraq [sic]: Mousavi is no different really from Ahmadinejad; our distaste would only empower the government; the resistance does not want or need the American albatross; we should have learned our lesson from 1953, or from Iraq, or from (fill in the blanks); it is such a relief to have a calm president rather than a President Bush shouting about freedom in the hearts of everyone; we can't do anything anyway; "Bush did it" and tarnished the American brand anyway . . .

Two reactions: (1) I doubt such supportive arguments would be now advanced should a President McCain have urged similar realpolitik; (2) Should Obama have come out a few days ago with ringing endorsements for those who wish free and fair elections, and had he given a Reaganesque embrace of the dissidents' bravery and idealism, I doubt we would be reading any of what we read today.

In other words, we are in an age of ipse dixit. And that is all ye need to know.

There is no doubt some truth to Hanson's counterfactuals. If a President McCain was reacting to the Iran situation the way President Obama is now (which wouldn't happen), there would undoubtedly be some Democrats and liberals who would try to score some cheap political points by criticizing his subdued response. Similarly, had President Obama publicly embraced the Iranian dissidents (which he's too smart to do), many Democrats would undoubtedly have come to his defense.

But here's something else I know with every fiber of my being. If a President McCain was acting the way Obama is right now, Victor Davis Hanson--and every last one of his colleagues at the National Review--would be lavishing praise upon him for his intelligent and pitch perfect response to the situation. And if President Obama had rushed to publicly embrace the dissidents, Victor Davis Hanson would have already cranked out ten posts, all of them dripping with condescension and scorn, criticizing Obama for his naivete and failure to understand the dynamics of the situation. And every last one of his colleagues would be piling on.

Is Hanson really so lacking in self-awareness that he doesn't see this? Is he really so blind to the forces of partisanship that drive him? At least Karl Rove doesn't waste everyone's time with this kind of self-delusional nonsense.