Conor Friedersdorf isolates a particular strand of conservative schizophrenia:
What’s truly weird is the subset of Obama critics who’ve tried to persuade me that he is a dangerous radical with ties to terrorists, or that he is plotting to transform the United States into a Communist dictatorship, or that he is going to seize the guns of law abiding Americans, or that he is an extreme leftist who cannot be trusted… and who nevertheless argue that President Obama should continue the Bush era practice of invoking the War on Terrorism to wield unprecedented executive power....
How can men who make these claims about Barack Obama simultaneously insist that a country governed by him is well served by an executive branch given expansive powers during war time? How can they insist that he’ll end freedom in America, and defend the idea of warrantless wiretapping? Is it credible to argue that he is a radical opportunist who seeks the prosecution of political opponents, and that he should have the power to order waterboarding, “walling,” and other brutal interrogation tactics? ...Were President Obama even half as bad as some of his critics claim, shouldn’t they be agitating for less executive power, more Congressional oversight, and perhaps even conclude that they were mistaken to help increase the power of the executive branch given that they haven’t any idea who’ll hold the presidency in the future?
--Christopher Orr