Obamacare critics who anticipated the law's problems are well within their rights to claim vindication, and they can even be forgiven for a smug I-told-you-so or two. But only a partisan zealot would react like National Review's Jonah Goldberg.
Up front, he notes that it's no laughing matter that anxious Americans are losing their health insurance and living under a flawed law. "But come on, people," he writes. "If you can’t take some joy, some modicum of relief and mirth, in the unprecedentedly spectacular beclowning of the president, his administration, its enablers, and, to no small degree, liberalism itself, then you need to ask yourself why you’re following politics in the first place. Because, frankly, this has been one of the most enjoyable political moments of my lifetime."
This is why normal Americans mistrust partisan political junkies. Generally speaking, partisans like Jonah Goldberg are perfectly kind, upstanding people who treat their friends, family members, and even perfect strangers with goodwill. But get them talking about politics, whether in a column or in the comments of their favorite blog or at the Thanksgiving dinner table, and the loss of perspective is as dramatic as Goofy's when he gets behind the wheel in Motor Mania: