Republicans Decide It's Okay Now To Criticize Bush

Via Crooks and Liars, Glenn Greenwald of Unclaimed Territory has an excellent essay on AlterNet, "Gingrich Criticizes Bush, Aids Enemy". In it he busts Newt Gingrich and his ilk for trying to get away with criticizing Bush now that things are going so well, after creating a criticism-intolerant environment for the last five years:

The greatest evil of the last five years isn't that our government pursued disastrous and illegal policies, it's that the administration and its supporters attempted to immunize themselves from criticism for those actions, thus depriving our democracy of its greatest strength. To watch the people responsible for that dissent-quashing now stand up and voice the very criticisms they've long equated with treason is far too infuriating to celebrate. It is important to ensure that the people responsible for the indescribable mess our country is in on so many levels not be allowed to extricate themselves from responsibility. There has been one political faction that has run every part of our country for the last five years, and they are responsible for everything that has happened. We know who they are, and it is critically important that they not be permitted to play-act as a legitimate opposition.