Perlstein is an idiot.
To listen to him and some others you'd think there wasn't a liberal in America who believed in looney ideas. Here's just one commentor pointing out how stupid this is.
I sat through years of the Bush presidency listening to how he knocked down the WTC, had secret camps prepared for dissenters with shackle-equipped railroad cars, was keeping thousands of political prisoners that nobody knew about, was going to declare martial law...the list of insanity is endless.
This kind of thing was typical.