"We Blame George W. Bush" is a recurring category in James Taranto's "Best of the Web Today" column at the Wall Street Journal. The meme mocks the penchant of progressives to blame the former president for everything under the sun.

The phenomenon was illustrated in an ugly way on last night's Rachel Maddow Show. Dem Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut blamed the existence of the Charlie Hebdo terrorists on, yup, W. Oh, Murphy didn't call 43 out by name. He didn't have to. Instead, Murphy went out of his way to claim that the murderers weren't radicalized by ISIS [which might thus be attributable to Obama's neglect], but instead as a result of "the invasion and occupation of Iraq," which he described as a "decade-long mistake." Got it? Iraq not ISIS. Decade-long, not recent. Not Obama's fault. All together now: We Blame George W. Bush.

Maddow had teed Murphy up, asking whether ISIS was inspiring terrorists [whom she used the neutral term "fighters" to describe] such as those in the Paris attacks. So how did Maddow respond to Murphy's move to smear W over the Hebdo massacre? Crickets. She moved right along, asking Murphy whether he thought there'd be a congressional vote authorizing current action in Iraq and Syria.