Reply #1: Krugman hits the nail right on the head, as he often does.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

All that puffery from the righties about torture and gettin' the bad guys dead or alive had everything to do with "proving" how tough they are. I'd go a little farther: I think that what happened on 9/11 -- even beyond the obvious destruction and loss of life -- resulted in unbearable humiliation for those who saw the U.S. as the world's tough guy, the John Wayne of nations (and, if I live in a tough country, I'm tough, too, right?).

After all, weren't we seriously punk'd by a small group of assholes armed with nothing but box cutters? And didn't this cause the national dick to go all flaccid? So ever since then, there has been this constant chest-beating from the humiliated watchers of "24," desperate to restore their own national/self-image of manly, hairy-chested toughness. And only Republicans could do it because Democrats are soft, sensitive girly-men who would just get the vapors and clutch their pearls whenever anything remotely military is even suggested.

And that's what's driving the GOPers crazy now. Our guy turned out to be tougher (not to mention more competent) than their guy, and now in a way they're humiliated again. Punk'd by a Democrat.

Ha.