And George W. Bush Is The Best President We’ve Ever Had, Too

Michelle Cottle in TNR observes the right wing meltdown, in particular the desperate assertions by the ladies of the Right, (Coulter, Nooner and Chavez) that the fault for Abu Ghraib lies with the “babes in uniform.”

… I nonetheless feel a pang of sympathy for all those Bush fans who increasingly find themselves laboring to defend the indefensible (e.g., the continued employment of George “Slam Dunk” Tenet or Donald “Don’t Show Me the Torture Pics” Rumsfeld). Whatever outrage-related stress I’m suffering, it’s clearly negligible compared with the complete mental meltdown occurring on the right, particularly in regards to the torture of Iraqi internees at Abu Ghraib.

As photos (and maybe even video!) trickle out documenting the misdeeds of American soldiers, conservatives are scrambling to find an acceptable party to blame. A few, like George Will, have risen brilliantly to the occasion, offering the administration a tough-love critique. But most have treated the two most logical candidates–the Pentagon and the White House–as off-limits.

For them, the current unpleasantness must be somehow pinned on a reassuringly liberal villain. You can actually hear the gears whirring in their heads as they cycle through the usual suspects: Bill, Hillary, unions, tree-huggers, taxes, the French–surely some left-wing bogeyman can be found to take the heat off poor Rummy!

Fortunately, a trio of right-wing chicks–Linda Chavez, Peggy Noonan, and the perennially unbalanced Ann Coulter–have leaped into this breach, peddling the ideologically soothing notion that Abu Ghraib is the sad, but predictable, by-product of permitting women in the military.

[…]

Behind all the novel theories is this basic truth: The Bush administration never makes a mistake. Sure, American personnel in Iraq have been stretched dangerously thin thanks to a certain defense secretary’s reluctance to call up more troops. It’s also true that terrified, inexperienced reservists received virtually no training in preparation for sensitive postings. And military intelligence probably did ‘request’ that internees be softened up a bit to aid interrogations. But all of this was part of a brilliant plan that would surely have succeeded if not for some misguided lefty notion about gender equality. Which is why the most important task the Pentagon faces these next few months isn’t upping our troop count, or investing the international community in Iraq’s future, or even ferreting out who ordered the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. It’s drumming every coarse, vulgar, uppity, sexually corrupting woman out of the military. And, if that doesn’t work, we can always blame the gays.

Let’s face it. The feminazis are clearly culpable. But, it’s liberals in general who are at fault. They must be. They always are. And something should be done about it. Then, as Rush says, “we should keep just one around in a museum somewhere, so people can see what they looked like.”

I know that most readers of this blog never watch Fox, and for good reason. But, it’s kind of fun watching Fred Barnes’s head explode after trying to resolve its internal contradictions. Give it 5 minutes. You’ll enjoy yourself.