It’s rather poignant to watch the media love-fest over Obama’s ‘honymoon’ period – the fawning over Michelle’s pricey fashions, the breathless announcements of how wonderful everything will be as hope soars on clouds of euphoria – and wonder how the Bush presidency would have started if we’d been given a beginning like this, rather than the corrosive and unrelenting assault that consumed his presidency from Election Day 2000 onward. I don’t think there’s a better metaphor than the NY Daily News running front-page headlines about the Obamas bringing a dog to the White House while Bush’s dog Barney bites a Reuters reporter. Victor Davis Hanson: “When I hear a partisan insider like Paul Begala urging at the 11th hour that we now rally around lame-duck Bush in his last few days, I detect a sense of apprehension that no Democrats would wish conservatives to treat Obama as they did Bush for eight years.” H/T. Indeed, they expect that we won’t; they count on it. Ace, unsurprisingly, is having none of the pleas for unilateral unity:

Sorry, folks. No frakkin’ sale. We remember “Jesusland.” And stuff like this. And if you have a few hours, scroll through Malkin’s “Bush Derangement Syndrome” archive. We remember everything – being called racist warmongers, Christianist nutbags, racists, and all the rest of the vitriol you folks threw at us in your “AAAHHH CHIMPY MCBUSHITLER HALLIBURTON IS THE EVILEST” stage of political development.

You spent the last eight years engaged in a disgusting orgy of divisive political hatred and now you want to play nice and pretend we’re all united now? I for one am not going to treat President Obama the way you treated President Bush. That doesn’t mean, though, I’m going to just forgive and forget the fact that you’ve polluted the political landscape with your bile and patchouli-stanking spittle.

I’ve already said my own bit on how the Right should respond. We certainly should not have any illusions that a good deed today will ever be repaid. And we can all enjoy a laugh at the whiplash on the other side. Goldberg: “Alas, that [dissent is patriotic] standard only works for liberals. When conservatives dissent it’s called being ‘divisive.’” Lileks: “I’m off to the Mall to sell razor blades so people can scrape off their ‘Question Authority’ bumper stickers.”