Eugene Robinson: Strawman Slayer

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson really stretches his mental muscles today, opining that conservatives are exhibiting "Hanoi Jane" behavior. Here's a question for Mr. Robinson: I thought Jane Fonda's actions in the 1970's were perfectly fine, or at least excusable now (kinda like Roman Polanski's rape of a 13-year old girl). Yet I doubt 30 years from now Eugene Robinson is going to be okay with Limbaugh and Beck's criticism of President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. So is Mr. Robinson just intellectually lazy, or is he hypocritical?

I'm going with lazy. Robinson, rather than accepting the fact that plenty of world leaders (including Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa) didn't think Obama had earned the prize, instead engages in a fight with strawmen.

The problem for the addlebrained Obama-rejectionists is that the president, as far as they are concerned, couldn't possibly do anything right, and thus is unworthy of any conceivable recognition. If Obama ended world hunger, they'd accuse him of promoting obesity. If he solved global warming, they'd complain it was getting chilly. If he got Mahmoud Abbas and Binyamin Netanyahu to join him around the campfire in a chorus of "Kumbaya," the rejectionists would claim that his singing was out of tune.

Let the president actually accomplish any of those things, Mr. Robinson. Perhaps you're right, perhaps you're wrong, but it's telling that even you can't find real accomplishments of the President. Instead you have to invent future accomplishments for the President. How lame.

Of course, having said that, watch Eugene Robinson win a Pulitzer for this column.