No, you're mainstream. Visceral loathing of presidents one politically opposes is more the norm than the exception. I needn't remind anyone how much Republicans detested Clinton, and Reagan was deeply, deeply despised by liberals in my neck of the woods. (and Nixon -- they all loved Nixon!)
Only the unthreatening/incompetent -- Carter, Ford, Bush 41. -- avoid this fate. And whaddyaknow -- the were all 1-termers!
True enough, but the question I keep asking myself is "isn't he in fact much worse than the others?"
I do remember hating Reagan, but even then, I could see what people liked about him. More precisely, I could imagine someone could be undeluded and still like things about Reagan. But I can only explain Bush by thinking that people are just wrong in their assessments or simply being dishonest. You're a philosophy guy, I'm a philosophy guy, but what the heck, isn't Bush the pits, objectively speaking?
Okay, so visceral loathing by a few desperate fringesters won't limit GWB to just his one term. I'm going to need a bucket.
I would bet that there is a significant portion of people who supported Bush in the last election who continue to do in part because of the extreme nature of the most vocal anti-Bush / anti-war crowd (i.e. the Bush=Hitler and other assorted nonsense). For people who once voted for Bush, comments like these (and the overall tone of the rabid anti-bush crowd) probably elicit a strong reaction to support the president, as the argument against him is so lame. That and people probably have a hard time separating support for the country in a time of war from support for the president.
Faced with actual policy arguments, however, I bet you'd find many former bush voters to agree that he does indeed suck and are hoping for some democratic candidate with even a glimmer of hope of winning.
I find Bush excruciating for the smirky style described in the original post. But I disagree that he is psychopathic. He is rather, a rich frat boy--pampered, perhaps well-meaning, but callow, shallow, and narrow. He himself is not horrifying--what is horrifying is that this very little man is at the helm of the most gigantic ship of state ever.
He must not be reelected! I FORBID IT!
Good point Lassen. I hate Bush is so in vogue that sometimes even I want to rebel against it.
But the blogosphere has been excruciatingly and tiringly pro Bush. Maybe that's a blogosphere trait in general. But it seems like no one anywhere is willing to admit to any faults or fallacies, and just as hating can undermine your credibility, so can unwavering blind support in face of some possible issues.
A healthy rant either way. The blogosphere is bloody stale sometimes.
But there really is just SO much to hate about Bush! The fact that he's not just pampered and rich, but that everything about him, everything he's done, points to the fact that he takes his advantages completely for granted, and doesn't care a whit that other people are not as privledged. There's the fact that I think it can be reasonably argued that Bush DOESNT HAVE an agenda, other than getting elected. It seems he's utterly not interested in policy, governing, or our society as a whole...he just wants to be elected, and everything he does is towards that...he simply calculates to win. I'd go so far as to say I even doubt that he's a devout Christian...it seems manifest from his history that it is all simply an overt political move.
Why do so many people support Bush? Because, contrary to what some Republicans might say, he is coddled and protected by the media. Even though we should be old enough to know better, how can we not resent the injustice of how well Bush has been treated compared with Clinton, when he has done so much worse? Buth in and before the white house. THe problem is, most americans just don't care enough to get anything more than the most readily available opinion, which would happen to be the Administration's. Finding counter-points requires a little research and critical thinking...which it really seems is beyond what most people are willing to do.
Sorry to disappoint you ogged. I held my nose while voting for GWB, but since then his performance has pleasantly surprised me. But this judgment is based on the key foreign policy decisions -- toppling the Taliban, invading Iraq, going slow with North Korea, and isolating Arafat. I understand reasonable people disgaree on this, of course. But he's not "the pits," not by a long way.
Lassen makes an excellent point above. Those who support the adminstration's foreign policy (like me) are really spooked by the vehement, grasping-at-straws nature of the opposition (The Iraqi museum! It's all about the Iraqi museum!).
Let me venture a sociological observation. Clearly Bush makes democrats/liberals cuckoo for coco puff -- we we see it here even in erudite confines of this comment box! Then, as I said above, so did Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, FDR, etc. (who's the last 2-termer *not* to be hated? Ike?) what I find interesting is the *quality* of the hatred. Bush, and Reagan got typed as idiots. Right-wingers, by contrast, tended to view Clinton as a Machievellian super-genius, a chicken-fried Lex Luthor.
Is this coincidence, or is there something intrinsic to the nature of the parties that shapes the form in which their demons appear?
I more or less supported those foreign policy moves too. But Afghanistan seems abandoned, Iraq seems to have been invaded under false pretenses, the North Korean situation is still too fluid to draw conclusions and Arafat's isolation won't mean anything if the "terrorists' veto" remains in effect. Let's leave that aside though, because, as you say, reasonable people can disagree.
But: 1) This administration lies. Baldly, boldly and repeatedly. (WMD, "average" benefit to taxpayers, the list goes on) 2) It is petty and mean. (it treated Jim Jeffords badly enough to prod him to switch parties, it outed a CIA operative to get back at her husband) 3) Bush is, and I really and truly don't care what anyone says anymore, a moron.
That's the stuff that provokes a visceral reaction. But even leaving that aside, and granting (just for the sake of argument) that Republicans may be better on foreign policy, I could never vote for GWB because of his positions on the environment and women's rights. ANWR? The disgraceful actions regarding funding for international women's rights programs? It's too much. And I haven't even mentioned economic policy yet!
How can you do it?
The idea that contemporary Bush-hatred is somehow comparable to the vein-popping, spittle-flecked apoplexy that Clinton's detractors peddled in is absurd. When I see Bush accused of drug-dealing, rape, and murdering members of his cabinet, and then having those accusations repeated in major US newspapers, then I'll consider such arguments.
You bet I hate Bush, and I use the word hate carefully. I thought we could never do worse as a country than Nixon or Reagan. That has shown itself to be a massive failure of imagination on my part. I long for the competence of those nefarious clowns.
But my vituperance at Bush is based in policy, where the GOP simply can't make that claim about Clinton. After all, they consistently complained that he was stealing their issues, which means, by definition, that he governed from the center.
"How I can do it"
Well ogged, in order of sequence.
1. the economic "lies" are par for the course, I think. Not my ideal of how an adminstartion acts, but not insupportable. the foreign policy "lies" may amount to something more serious. As yet, verdict not proven
2. They play hardball, fair enough. But nothing as yet risees to the level of abuse of power. The Plame story for example, I'm still not sure I understand well enough to comment on. It is easy -- very, very easy, to read hardball politics by one's opponents into abuses of power and indecency. (Lots of republicans are still steaming over the NAACP ad with James Byrds' daughter, just as democrats are over Bush senior's Willie Horton-inspired "revolving door.")
3. I notice that my locutions tend to the plural here -- "they" not "he," "the adminsitration" not "the president." That because you are , really, voting for an organization not a man. I bet I could spot GWB 100 points at scrapple but I think that's beside the point. Josh Marshall make think eh has evidence for the incompetance of Rumsfeld, Cheney, and their staff. But I'm far from convinced.
ANWR: don't care really. Drill and be merry. And heck, that's also the editorial position of The New Republic!
Mexico City, etc.: The modern republican party relies on these fig leaves to cover inaction on abortion in any way likely to immediately effect the votign class. (like Reagan's gesture towards a pro-life Constitutional Amendment). If our international aid is made less effective because of refusal to fund organizations that counsel abortion, that's too bad. But given the screw-job the pro-life block has received domestically at the hands of the courts, this seems a very small concession to their moral objections. (here again, I know that many on the left will read this as either incoherent, offensive, or both. that's what i get for broaching the abortion question in a comment thread)
On economic policy -- you have a point there, my friend! It's an ugly scence.
(and side note to apostrapher: I didn't claim, and don't claim that left nuttiness over Bush is equal in magnitude to right nuttiness over Clinton. Rather, I think it's quite common for the president to be "hated" by his political opponents.)
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Wow... this is interesting, I got to this page by doing a Google search on Carter's foreign policy...
I'm 16 and I'm a no nonsense kind of guy, and I have something I'd like to say:
SHUT UP!
All you Bush haters, you make me sick. Yes, you have a right to voice your opinions about the stupidity, ugliness and financial upbringing of the president... but you don't have to. And you probably shouldn't... I mean do you lefties know how rediculous you look? I mean, comparing a modest, intelligent, humorous president to the leader of an evil empire that took the lives of millions of Jews? What is that? Where are you coming from? Please, give me answers!
And on the foreign policy front... okay, maybe Bush lied, I don't know... but hey, we're there and so we may as well finish the job. We wouldn't want to leave the country in the shape it's in now... would we? I mean... isn't that how Hitler came to power - the US just ran out of Germany because of the pressure?
I realize I have more questions than answers... and maybe I'm a little off on my history, but I have one last question I am dying to ask:
To all the people who read this and disagree with me... to those who want to see the president taken out JFK style, to the people who would vote for Kerry out of spite... to the Bush haters...
COULD YOU DO A BETTER JOB?
Take some time to reflect on that before you send me an angry letter, before you laugh at another of Bush's blunders, before you vote for that stuck up s.o.b. Kerry...
So this is what 16 sounds like? And he is probably one of the more intelligent ones in his school. We raise them on "reality" shows, Britney Spears, and Paris Hilton. WHat do we expect? I weep for the future.
To my way of thinking, Barry Goldwater is the last real American. Ask him what he thinks of George Bush I and II, John Kerry, and, for that matter, Ronald Regan. The man vehemently opposed fetal tissue research that could give us strong treatments for Alzheimer's. Hoist on his own petard the Gipper was, just like George Wallace, Lee Atwater, Gary Hart and all the other lying hypocrites who pretend to lead us. Which makes me think of Milovan Djilas' words: They pretend to lead us and we pretend to follow.
Barry Goldwater is the last real American. Ask him what he thinks
Seeing as he's been dead for six years, that might be tricky.
Lied, Bushed lied? What is that based on? That we havent found bio, chem, or nuclear weapons? Just because you can't find soemthing doesnt mean it isnt there. Just because in 1491 columbus didnt know America existed, doesnt mean it didn't. we could still yet find WMD's. And for all of you who say: "when are we?" Saddam had 5 years to hide the damn things after he kicked out weapons inspectors, a blatnet disregard to the accords signed to end the Gulf War. Some say we didnt have proof of WMD's existence, well I wonder why, could it be a genocidal murderer kicked us out in 1998. And for those who question the U.S. actions in Iraq, under the accords that ended the Gulf War, it stated that mitary action would end if, among other things, Saddam ended his bio, chem, and stopped trying to aquire nuclear weapons, proved by allowing U.N. weapon inspectors to inspect the area. Any faltwering could and would result in renwed conflict. So by the terms of the treaty, the U.S. and every other country who signed (those of the U.N.) was obligated to invade Iraq. But once again the U.S. is at the ass end of the cries of the world.
Oh and heres a question, how come you never hear on the news about the Kurds in northern Iraq. I say its because they are thrilled that they arent being systematical gassed, for racial purfication. Sounds kind of filmilar...
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