It's become a fairly common refrain. The right does something offensive, the left gets frustrated when there are no consequences, time elapses, and the right, annoyed by lingering resentment, tells the left to "get over it." Given the right's conduct, it's not always easy to just let bygones be bygones.
Consider the latest example. When the president nominated Sam Fox, a major right-wing donor who gave $50,000 to the Swiftboat Vets, to be ambassador to Belgium, it raised a few eyebrows. When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on Fox's nomination, Sen. John Kerry, as one might imagine, wasn't pleased to see him.
Kerry was hardly alone. Wade Sanders -- former deputy assistant secretary of the Navy, decorated former swift boat skipper, and combat veteran -- wrote an op-ed last week attacking Bush's nomination of Fox: "[A]s a military man, it doesn't matter much who is being attacked -- John McCain, Max Cleland, John Kerry, or Jack Murtha -- I just don't believe that assaults on the military records of veterans belong in our politics."
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal editorial page took up the controversy and, naturally, stood by the White House.
The country long ago moved beyond John Kerry's Presidential ambitions, but the Senator, as he seems never to tire of reminding us, has not. Now Mr. Kerry's throbbing grievances jeopardize President Bush's nominee for U.S. Ambassador to Belgium. [...]
The Senate confirmation process is already congested by Democratic intransigence, from Bush appellate judges to U.N. ambassadors. But at least these conflicts came with some veneer of substantive objection, not merely the desire for political retribution.
At the outset of this largely incoherent editorial, the WSJ had a message for White House critics: "Get over it."
Now, even if we put aside the Fox ambassadorial nomination and what Kerry might do about it, the problem here is that, once again, the right wants the left to "get over it."
Given just how many times we've heard that, it's easier said than done.