Bush Hatred Out of the Closet

Reasonable column on the Bush hatred in the US.

The words tumble out, the hands gesture urgently, as Jonathan Chait explains why he hates George W. Bush.

It's Bush's radical policies, says the 31-year-old New Republic writer, and his unfair tax cuts, and his cowboy phoniness, and his favors for corporate cronies, and his heist in Florida, and his dishonesty about his silver-spoon upbringing, and, oh yes, the way he walks and talks.

For some of his friends, Chait says at a corner table in a downtown Starbucks, "just seeing his face or hearing his voice causes a physical reaction -- they have to get away from the TV. My sister-in-law describes Bush's existence as an oppressive force, a constant weight on her shoulder, just knowing that George Bush is president."

On the right: Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, writing in Time, sees the anti-Bush "contempt and disdain giving way to a hatred that is near pathological. . . . Bush's great crime is that he is the illegitimate president who became consequential -- revolutionizing American foreign policy, reshaping economic policy and dominating the political scene ever since his emergence as the post-9/11 war president."

On the left: Paul Krugman sees a huge double standard, insisting there is "no way to be both honest and polite" about the administration's deceptions.

"There's nothing on the liberal side that compares to the bile we've routinely gotten on the right," the New York Times columnist says in an interview. "After years of extreme attacks from conservative pundits and politicians, now there's a little bit of feistiness on the other side and it's 'Oh, those rude people!' They themselves continue to do slash-and-burn, and the other side can't. It's amazing how thin-skinned some of these guys are."

What, in the end, is the impact of this anti-Bush animus?

To hear conservatives tell it, the liberals are being self-destructive by constantly and fervently denouncing the president.

"After a while," says Ingraham, "it sounds like they're not respecting the intelligence of the average American. It's become a brand for the angry left."

To hear liberals tell it, the fury at Bush could fuel a Democratic surge in 2004 and helps explain the improbable success of Howard Dean. In this view, the party doesn't need milquetoast Democrats who blur their differences with Bush as much as two-fisted candidates ready to punch him out.

"Many Democratic partisans looked for a champion who would take on Bush directly, with passion and vigor, who would call Bush on his false statements," David Corn says. Dean "mirrored the anger and disgust felt by many grass-roots Democrats."