Pen-Elayne on the Web

"The truth is that everything the new wave of Bush critics has to say was obvious long ago to any commentator who was willing to look at the facts."

Or, payback's a bitch, as Paul Krugman notes. (Freebie link found via Maha.) We watched much of the Bruce Bartlett interview on The Daily Show last night, until Jon Stewart started desperately trying to convince Bartlett that competent government might actually be A Good Thing no matter the size, which we felt was a pointless tangent when Stewart could have kept to the subject at hand and said something along the lines of what we were thinking, and what Krugman's quote above articulates. This is what I wish Stewart had asked:

George W. Bush ran in 2000 on, among other things, the promise that he'd be a "CEO President," but the signs were all there, throughout his entire career, that he was a failed CEO at every company he'd been handed. Why on earth did so many voters ignore this matter of public record and believe he'd actually be competent? Moreover, why did so many persist in believing in Bush's competence as President in 2004 even after so many events had proven otherwise?

And I'd have loved to have seen Bartlett's response.