Electing the ostriches to office

Mark Steyn pithily reminds us why the anyone-but-Bush and the anyone-but-the-Republicans and the I-want-to-punish-the-Republicans crowds are all wrong:

But if it really is, as Democrats say, ”all about the future of our children,” then our children will want to know why our generation saw what was happening and didn’t do anything about it. They will despise us as we despise the political class of the 1930s. And the fact that we passed a great prescription drug plan will be poor consolation when the entire planet is one almighty headache. My caller at C-SPAN thought this Bush farsightedness shtick was ridiculous. And, though I did my best to lower her blood pressure, I can’t honestly say I succeeded. But suppose the ”Anyone But Bush” bumper-sticker set got their way; suppose he and Cheney and Rummy and all the minor supporting warmongers down to yours truly were suddenly vaporized in 20 seconds’ time. What then?

Nothing, that’s what. The jihad’s still there. Kim Jong Il’s still there. The Iranian nukes are still there. The slyer Islamist subversion from south-east Asia to the Balkans to northern England goes on, day after day after day. And one morning we’ll switch on the TV and the smoke and flames will be on this side of the Atlantic, much to President Rodham’s surprise. Bush hatred is silly and parochial and reductive: History is on the march and the anti-Bush crowd is holding the telescope the wrong way round.