SwiftVets.com

[Anker-Klanker]

All good points. I'll throw in something else that I've noticed: it's the concept of self-discipline.

I've noticed that Conservatives have it (and believe in it); Liberals do not!

In my own interpersonal relationships over the years, I've observed that a person who cannot exercise self-discipline strongly resents one who can. It's about as close to a primal cultural difference as one can find. And I think that's one more piece of the puzzle.

Having said that, it's just one more explanation for the hate and anger at the personal level. IMHO the phenomena we've been witnessing is the combination of several factors (many of them mentioned above), but the biggest single factor of all is the pomposity of the Liberal, Elitist Media (LEM). When they decide to annoint someone, or else declare them the devil, Hell hath no fury like the LEM for enforcing their opinion.

[MichaelP]

I think one of the columns in my hometown paper put it good.

T.R. Fehrenbach: Hate W.? Well, what you see is what you get
Web Posted: 10/03/2004 12:00 AM CDT


San Antonio Express-News

George W. Bush has generated more anger, angst, hatred and attacks than any president in modern times. Presidents since John Adams have invited ridicule and opposition, but W. may be unique.

More articles, books and films have bashed him than all the others in my lifetime. Intellectual/middle-brow magazines such as New Republic and American Prospect and liberal newspapers like the New York Times print statements calling W. "the worst president in U.S. history" and "incomparably more dangerous than Reagan or any other president in this nation's history."

About the only name he has not been called is the Antichrist, but that's not in the liberal-progressive lexicon. In short, as the Enquirer put it, W. has "driven liberals stark raving bonkers," and that's the best description I can think of.

Why?

Media and political opponents set forth the usual suspects: the war in Iraq; the economy; the deficit; jobs; the homeless and uninsured; health coverage; lowered taxes on the rich; abortion; same-sex and other opinions; ticking off the United Nations and U.S. allies; and Dick Cheney.

These do provide reasons not to love a sitting president, but they have all been argued and fought over before. Why has W. aroused so much venom and calumny and misfired brain synapses, the most in recent history?

Methinks there are a stew of ingredients, each cooking up an explosive mess in the liberal psyche. I list some:

W. sashayed out of Texas, unashamed of it, with few credentials and convoluted syntax, disdained by most of those who pontificate, write and publish. (The same sort snorted at Harry Truman, LBJ and Reagan.) Few grasped the fact that "gentlemen's C's" from Ivy League schools have often run both enterprise and the country, hiring magnas to handle the details.

Scandalously, W. was successful. He ousted the party in power despite (then) prosperity, besting an experienced candidate in debate, eking out a carefully crafted Electoral College victory and surviving legal challenges. Self-classified smart people cannot forgive being made fools of by someone they think is dumber than they, not now, not ever.

Then the smart money said his win was so thin he couldn't do much, maybe not even govern. But W. acted like a leader who'd won 48 states — he was president, employing all the latent powers the Founders placed in the office. He hired his kind of minds and panjandrums to direct the nation; he pushed the things he'd promised, with little interest in compromise.

W. tossed his social-conservative constituency raw meat: opposing same-sex marriage, abortion, stem cell research and supporting religion. (Where Reagan hinted, W. played smash-mouth.)

He threw cold cash to the entrepreneurial classes, excluding entrepreneurial lawyers. This was insult on top of injury to dissidents.

When the felicitously opportune Osama bin Laden assisted with 9-11, W. tested a new foreign policy emphasizing pre-emption. (Madam Albright talked a good game, W. played hardball.)

Believing that the twin towers changed America, and thus the world — whether people understood it or not — W. pushed a surge in governmental powers, scaring the left into near-apoplexy. (The left does not mind Big Brother, but only when Brother is one of theirs.)

W. believes that compared to national security, all other issues fade into historical insignificance, and he realizes that no American president ever has, ever can or ever will allow foreigners to dictate U.S. policy, however much it ticks off peace parties and foreigners.

His economic policies angered all (though they dare not speak it) who favor redistribution in their hearts. His education policy — more federal funds than ever in history — is detested by educators because it was a start on accountability, which they fear more than the devil abhors holy water. He allowed the GOP to spend like drunken Democrats in pursuit of power, upsetting not only Democrats but some Republicans.

He made an openly Christian believer attorney general and believes faith must play a role in American society. Whoa! Unlike Clinton, he has little regard for movie stars. Hollywood hates it when it gets no respect. He does not read published criticism but has hires dissect and defuse it. (He acts like an executive rather than a Jimmy Carter.) That makes self-important editors who believe they should be running the country candidates for strokes.

There's more, but you get the picture. With W., what you see is pretty much what you get. And for his opponents, the most unbearable thing of all is that more Americans seem to like him than they like his detractors.

Michael

[Kimmymac]

GREAT ARTICLE! Great thread. A must read.

I have a simple mind. I do, and I am proud of it. Heck yeah, I know I am bright, but I am also--simple. I am what my husband calls a WYSIWYG. (What you see is what you get.) And this is how this simple mind from Texas sees it: George Bush is a good man. Not a perfect man; a good man. Humble, decent, kind. The Anti-Bushes are *perfect* (in their minds) and evil. Evil cannot abide goodness, never has, never will.

George Bush also has taken the war to the enemy, and the enemy cannot allow that. The enemy (both the literal one and the figurative Enemy) insists on being allowed to lay in the weeds. George Bush is 185 pounds of blow torch wielding whoop @ss, burning their fields and leaving them no place to hide. Shoot fire, I would hate Bush too, if I were them.

I wouldn't worry too much about why the lowlife enemy hates Bush. My daddy always taught me that we are revealed through who are enemies are, as much as by the company we keep. I have managed to make a few enemies in my time, and I never lost any sleep over it. If I made an enemy of you, you deserved it. Like my son's battalion's motto says: Punish the deserving.

And remember our family creed: Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.