In his epic book about heavy metal in the 80’s, Chuck Klosterman writes:

When Open Up and Say Ahh… was released, I remember reading a bunch of reviews where writers claimed it lacked the “rollicking fun” of Poison’s first album, Look What the Cat Dragged In. This confused me, because those same writers had all hated the first record, too.

This phenomenon has recently been transferred to politics. During the course of the debt limit debate, I’ve heard a growing number of liberal voices favorably discuss Reagan, and a smaller (but still significant) number of conservative voices long for the days of Bill Clinton. But partisans hated Reagan and Clinton with a passion that at the time was considered pretty remarkable, even in the context of Nixon and Carter. So it’s sort of rich (but mostly funny) to hear all these cross-party odes to the Gipper and the First Man of Foggy Bottom lately.

As for Poison, it is true that Open Up And Say Ahh… didn’t quite match Look What the Cat Dragged In on the “rollicking fun” meter. But that’s like saying Kobe Bryant isn’t quite as good as Michael Jordan.