Fred Barnes hates America (and is possibly a communist)

The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes has slowly morphed into one of the staunchest Bush and Republican apologists around. Witness this weird piece.

What I don't get about Barnes - who no doubt fancies himself a ideological conservative or terrific patriot or something - is the amoral attitude he seems to have about the so-called strategy to "change the subject." So Iraq is a truly important and defensible policy of the President and his supporters? THEN WHY ARE REPUBLICANS AFRAID TO EXPLAIN THAT TO THE PUBLIC??? Hey, at least Bush is out there trying to sell this mess. To hear Congressional Republicans these days, you'd hardly know that we've got 130,000 troops still over in Iraq.

I happen to think that our Iraq policy is important and that pulling out immediately offers no solution to the problem. But when did pundits like Barnes become so jaded, cynical and hey-whatever-wins-in-an-election-year? This nation has serious issues - and choices - in front of it. It is downright insulting (and yes, unpatriotic) for someone like Fred Barnes to casually endorse a strategy that puts crucial issues on the back-burner in favor of lesser, but politically more popular, ones.