VDH on Obama

Victor Davis Hanson writes another great post at the Corner.

I think we are slowly (and things of course could change) beginning in retrospect to look back at the outline of one of most profound bait-and-switch campaigns in our political history, predicated on the mass appeal of a magnetic leader rather than any principles per se. He out-Clintoned Hillary and followed Bill's 1992 formula: A young Democrat runs on youth, popular appeal and charisma, claims the incumbent Bush caused another Great Depression and blew Iraq, and then went right down the middle with a showy leftist veneer.

Second, we will come, through the Obama prism, to see that Bush's sins were largely the absence of rhetorical skills...

Of course, I am hoping that Obama will turn out much more moderate than he appeared to be before and during the election. I think the Office will moderate him. I am keeping my fingers crossed, especially because I took a chance and voted for him.

However, although I agree that a moderate Barack Obama will make the policies of GW Bush look better than they have been represented in the media, I don't think many people will care or bother to re-evaluate their opinion of the Bush presidency. The past eight years of anti-Bush extremism have turned him into such a boogie-man caricature that his actual performance and policies are largely irrelevant to the opinions people have of him.