There is just so much wrong here. I doubt my comment will appear (the NYT moderator has a habit of deleting my entries). 

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/do-you-miss-him-yet/?hp

What to say about such drivel?  "Victory at Last?" What victory? We still have 115,000 troops, plus innumerable contractors and and other support in Iraq. At least 38 Iraqis were killed during the "voting" that occurred on Sunday in Baghdad alone. Bush's war based on lies has cost us taxpayers over $900 billion, and what was all this death and destruction for?  Hmmm? Why are we in Iraq? A victory for a lie.

Declaring "victory" and pulling out of Iraq is no great achievement. Nor is it a vindication of Bush and his disastrous presidency. Bankrupting the economy, leaving massive debt for generations to come, not to mention the millions of Iraqi, Afghan, and Pakistani innocents who have died....this is Bush's legacy.

Stanley continues:  "Meanwhile, Bush’s policies came to seem less obviously reprehensible as the Obama administration drifted into embracing watered-down versions of many of them."  Well, the lack of logic here is mind-numbing. Two wrongs don't make a right, nor does it make immoral acts like torture any less reprehensible.

But still, the most ludicrous statement has to be this:  "Hatred and contempt of Palin is now the favorite pastime of those who have abandoned the cowboy from Texas and transferred their obsessive animus to the belle of Alaska (who, I say again, is more formidable than many in both parties believe.)"

Is it not possible to despise both "the cowboy" and "the belle?"  Can't I also include Mr. Obama (I wonder what nickname Stanley gives to him? “The busboy?”) for continuing so many of "the cowboy's" disastrous policies?  Why do I have to chose just one?

Palin? "Formidable?"  Surely you jest.  Those two words should never appear in the same sentence, unless you are describing her "formidable" habit of putting her foot in her mouth by speaking about things which she knows nothing about.

Finally:  "Well, I’m not that foolish, but I will venture to say that it will be more nuanced than anything the professional Bush-haters — indistinguishable in temperament from the professional Obama-haters — are now able to imagine."

Stanley, you are indeed foolish. I can certainly imagine plenty of people who will (and do) have the nuance to despise both Bush and Obama for only offering more of the same -- war, bailouts and bonuses for corporate criminals, staggering debt, record unemployment, and the continuing erosion of our democracy.