Bush Derangement Syndrome Eats Its Own Tail

I conducted an experiment on conservatives today.

I ran across the phrase "Bush Derangement Syndrome" in a post on Where Are My Keys. The term was coined by Charles Krauthammer in 2003 to define conspiracy theorists who blame everything bad on the President. 9/11 was Bush's plan, Bush is personally causing global warming, Bush wanted New Orleans to sink because he hates black people. Fair enough in that context.

The context I saw it in today was discussing the Dixie Chicks and their Grammy: " They gave those awards to them for one reason and one reason only. BDS." I have seen this phrase evolving elsewhere too: If you believe that mankind causes global warming, or that there IS global warming, you suffer from BDS. If you think that Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, you suffer from BDS. If you voted for democrats in the 2006 elections, it wasn't because you were for Democrats, you simply were expressing BDS. In other words, disagreement of any kind with the President is the product of derangement. There can be no other cause.

Which means, when you think about it, that America is currently two-thirds deranged.

I will admit that the blogs that make these arguments are the fringy ones. Michelle Malkin, for example, and a host of less famous extremists. So I invited commenters to explain to me... well, here's what I said.

My New Favorite Buzzword
Okay, I'm curious - What is the opposite of Bush Derangement Syndrome? What does someone who is not suffering from it believe?

The host generously broke it out into another topic. And for a change, I finally got what I wanted! Though he simplified the question to "what is the opposite of BDS called?", just look at the answers!

CAD: Clinton Adulation Disorder.
CSI, Cranial Sand Introduction
TAS, Terrorist Apologist Society
NFBL, Negotiate First, Blame Later
FLOW, Flip-flopping Liberals, Oops! War!

This is delicious... none of these jokes is an opposite! They are just DIFFERENT insults hurled at liberals. You either hate Bush, or you love terrorists. You're either deranged, or your head is full of sand. Strictly speaking, for example, the opposite would have been Clinton Derangement Disorder, or Terrorist Hatred Society.

A whole day to come up with these things and no one volunteered a kind word for the Big Fellah. None of them can bring themselves to say the opposite of Bush Derangement Syndrome is AGREEING WITH BUSH. They negate their own political spectrum! Obviously, this is a form of derangement.

It is a generally agreed-on opinion that the more you are like most folks, the better adjusted you are psychologically. In right wing world this position is reversed, like all other logic. Look at the attempt above to blame the war on flip-flopping liberals. For that matter, our President is the war hero -- people who actually FOUGHT in a war are cowards. Barack Obama would be FOR slavery! Freedom of speech is unAmerican. So for them, there is no disconnect between their distaste for the president being reasonable because they're keeping it to themselves; but for anyone to speak of it out loud is obviously insane. Or that crazy conspiracy theories about Clinton are probably true, but disliking Bush is grounds for stoning.

One last thing - maybe I'm putting too much thought into what is obviously just a buzzword. I shouldn't fall into that kind of escalation. Sorry, I meant surge.