A brief sampling of critical conservative headlines about the administration's exchange of five Gitmo detainees for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl reminds us just as briefly why conservatives' habitual criticism of the Obama administration has withered into a standing joke:
Weekly Standard: "Five of the Most Dangerous Taliban Commanders in U.S. Custody Exchanged for American Captive"
Drudge: "LAW BROKEN: CONGRESS NOT NOTIFIED OF GITMO SWAP"
Powerline: "Taliban becomes our latest enemy to play Obama for a patsy"
When, in conservatives' estimation, everything this administration does is wrong, wrong-headed, weak and lawless, then nothing, in any objective estimation, rises to the level of reasonable debate. It's flatly implausible that the Obama administration could be weak and wrong and lawless about everything--and this, in turn, renders conservative hysteria more of a fixture than a critique.
The irony, of course, is that conservatives could, from time to time, actually be right about something. But because for six years their position has been one of undifferentiated hostility and prefabricated contempt, one finds it impossible to distinguish their unhinged madness from any principled sincerity.
By now they're just barking clowns playing only to the carnival's rubes--which is no way to run a two-party system. It negates the whole purpose of legitimate debate, checks, and balances.