Presidential Derangement Syndrome

Eric Zorn is becoming one of my favorite columnists. He used to be a light-weight in the Tribune, posting about things like where to buy the best sno-cones. However, he has been promoted to the Op Ed page of the Tribune, and always writes an interesting, factual, and thoughtful column. In today's column he was wrote about "Presidential Derangement Syndrome."

In 2003 one of my least favorite columnists, Charles Krauthammer, wrote about "Bush Derangement Syndrome." The problem with Krauthhammer is that he has conservative blinders on. Whatever Bush did was wonderful, and whatever Obama does is awful. Never mind if they each do the same thing; Bush is right, and Obama is wrong. Talk about knee jerk...

Zorn says he first found the phrase "Presidential Derangement Syndrome" in 2005. I suspect it was coined well before that time, but with 165,000 Google hits, I am not about to go through each one. The Obama Derangement Syndrome was first mentioned by PoliGazette.com Managing Editor, Jason Arvak, in June of 2008.

So what is it? Krauthhammer defined Bush Derangement Syndrome as "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency -- nay -- the very existence of George W. Bush." One can extrapolate from there the general definition and the Obama definition.

Surely one can see the Republicans now doing just what they had accused the Democrats of. When Bush was president, the Republicans complained that the Democrats weren't "patriotic." Ahhh, it's different now, though. Suddenly all over the place they're criticizing Obama, saying he shouldn't have won the Nobel Peace Prize and that he doesn't have a legitimate birth certificate, etc.

I am not letting the Dems off the hook. They also ranted against war, ranted against nominees, just because the Republicans were supportive. Come on, people. We have to change our political nature in the U.S. or all will be lost. When one side gets it right, support it. When they don't, collaborate with them to make things better. The way we're going, we'll only have bickering and nothing will improve.