Obama Derangement Syndrome continues. While the Republicans running for office have to maintain some level of credulity, most of the right wing is finding new and creative ways to bash Obama over something for which, were it accomplished by a Republican president, they would be offering apotheosis.

This after being so very wrong about so many things. From the moment Obama was elected, they claimed that everything was his responsibility–everything bad, that is. Right-wingers couldn’t wait to dump the recession on Obama, and after claiming that 9/11 was Clinton’s fault, had no problem absolving Bush for any terror event that happened after Obama took office.

Worse, they claimed Obama was weak on terror. They claimed that he shied away from even the word “terrorism,” could not face up to our enemies, and neglected to address terrorism. Palin claimed that Obama’s “fundamental approach to terrorism is fatally flawed,” writing:

We are at war with radical Islamic extremists and treating this threat as a law enforcement issue is dangerous for our nation’s security.

Yeah, that turned out to be right, didn’t it?

When Obama, in 2007, held that we should be willing to go in to Pakistan to get bin Laden even without Pakistan’s cooperation, he was attacked as being a lightweight who knew nothing about foreign policy. They claimed his statement was irresponsible and reckless, and was not the way to go. William Kristol characterized it as Obama “losing ground to Hillary Clinton because he seemed naive about real world threats, frantically suggesting that he would invade Pakistan.” That turned out to be accurate, didn’t it?

And now that Obama is vindicated, they’re just as harsh, if not worse. The initial reaction was to claim that Obama had little or nothing to do with it, and what credit did not go to Bush should go entirely to the military; Obama, in taking any credit, was a shameless narcissist, politicizing the event.

Limbaugh now famously went into deep sarcasm:

In fact, it may be that President Obama single-handedly came up with the technique in order to pull this off. You see, the military wanted to go in there and bomb as they always do. They wanted to drop missiles and drop bombs and a number of totally destructive techniques here. But President Obama, perhaps the only qualified member in the room to deal with this, insisted on the Special Forces. No one else thought of that.

Ironically, he was more right than he knew. The military did want to bomb the target, and Obama did insist on a risky mission to go in there with SEALs. It’s not, as Limbaugh snarkily insisted, that nobody else thought of it–but it was Obama’s call, against what he was being advised. Had Bush done something like that, they would have been outraged at any sarcasm about it.

A lot of people had a confused initial reaction to bin Laden’s body being disposed of so quickly. Again, we see Obama’s preference to avoid drama. Right-wingers are livid that Obama didn’t bring the body back so they could do a victory dance on his crushed head. As satisfying as that might have been, it would have had too much negative blowback, making us more into villains and bin Laden into more of a martyr. Disposing of the body at sea may have been less satisfying, but it made eminent sense from a responsible, long-term point of view.

That, of course, does not stop a new right-wing movement from emerging, claiming that the decision is evidence that the whole thing was faked. Now termed as “Deathers,” in denial that Obama could have pulled off something like this, seeking some way of delegitimizing him. The DNA match is faked, they assert, and despite demands for photos of the body, there is little doubt that they’ll call that a fake, too.

Those on the right wing who do accept bin Laden’s death want to make it all about Bush. The Wall Street Journal “asked” if Bush should be given credit, leading a chorus of right-wing voices giving varying degrees of credit to Bush, who more or less gave up on bin Laden less than two years after 9/11. Palin stated, “We Thank President Bush For Having Made The Right Calls To Set Up This Victory.” A Breitbart blog writer exclaimed that this “vindicated” Bush, and was his victory, writing that, “If Any One Person, In Addition To Our Military Personnel, Deserves To Be Singled Out For Adoration At This Time It’s George W. Bush.”

Part of this is based upon the fact that information about the courier came from a Guantanamo detainee. This was immediately construed as vindicating torture. However, even Rumsfeld himself pointed out that the man who gave up the intel did not do so under torture, but only under standard interrogation techniques, after Obama had taken office. Nevertheless, right-wingers still cling to the idea that torture under Bush is now validated, and that because of this, Bush deserves credit for getting bin Laden, not Obama.

Here’s a question: reverse the party affiliations. A Democrat is in office when 9/11 hits. He then starts two massively costly wars, but after seven years in office, cannot track down the perpetrator, and in fact, at various points says he’s not even interested, that it’s not that important. And after all that time trying to spread “Democracy” throughout the Muslim world, he fails rather stunningly.

Then a Republican comes in to office, and in about two years, tracks down the terror ring leader, using new intel and a bold gamble of his own. In addition, after giving new popularity to the U.S. in the region partly just because of his name and partly due to a series of speeches that resonated with the people, a string of pro-Democracy revolutions rise up, so many that the effect is termed “Arab Spring.”

You really think that Republicans would give any credit to the Democrat?

If there were any event that could possibly bring left and right together, one would think that this were it. If there were any chance that bipartisanship and unity–which Republicans claim they are all about–were achievable, it would be for at least one day after nabbing bin Laden.

Instead, within hours, the right wing descended into the starkest, most hypocritical depth of accusation, recrimination, name-calling, and even conspiracy theorizing imaginable. While the big-league elected officials made grudging sounds of respect (though many with caveats and asides which detracted from them), most of the right wing simply turned this into yet another way to elevate the conservative establishment while denigrating Obama.

Keep in mind: one of their first criticisms of Obama was that he politicized all of this.

That’s something they would never do.