what is different is the willingness to call it "hatred" and to have the label blessed by much of the press, which has concluded that Bush is different from other modern presidents.
Bush-Hatred: Fearful Loathing . . .
By Robert J. Samuelson
washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, December 30, 2003; Page A19
The political story of 2003 was, in some ways, the fashionableness of "hate." It became respectable not simply to disagree with George W. Bush or to dislike him and criticize him -- but to go further and declare your everlasting hate for the man. People bragged about how much they hated Bush. This loathing of Bush from the left does not, as yet, seem any more vicious (and perhaps less so) than the loathing of Bill Clinton from the right. But what is different is the willingness to call it "hatred" and to have the label blessed by much of the press, which has concluded that Bush is different from other modern presidents.
Consider a recent Time cover story. Bush is the "Love Him, Hate Him President" who has "cleaved the nation into two tenaciously opposed camps even more than his predecessors. He is the man about whom Americans feel little ambivalence." Sounds convincing. But it doesn't seem to be true.
Of course, many Americans oppose Bush on everything from taxes to Iraq. They feel that he sold the war dishonestly and find his personal mannerisms -- his brittle language, his strutting -- deeply offensive. Jonathan Chait, justifying Bush hatred in the New Republic, put it this way: "Bush is a dullard lacking any moral constraints in pursuit of partisan gain, loyal to no principle save the comfort of the very rich, unburdened by any thoughtful consideration of the national interest."
But just because lots of people feel passionately about Bush doesn't mean the country is split into Bush lovers and haters. Many Americans are ambivalent, as they often are. Some like Bush and not his policies -- or the reverse. Consider a Los Angeles Times survey in November (before Saddam Hussein's capture improved Bush's ratings): 40 percent liked the president and his policies; 6 percent liked his policies and disliked him; 28 percent liked him and disliked his policies; and 20 percent disliked him and his policies. Almost three-quarters liked the president or his policies. Interestingly, at the end of their presidencies, both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton enjoyed either personal or policy approval from about three-quarters of voters.
Nor is it unusual for presidents to be vilified. Lyndon Johnson was detested for the Vietnam War. Even before Watergate, Richard Nixon was seen as a dishonest schemer ("Tricky Dick"). Jimmy Carter was ridiculed as an incompetent who mismanaged the economy and foreign policy. Reagan was depicted as a far-right fanatic intent on dismantling the New Deal. To their detractors, all these presidents promoted national ruin. But none inspired the "H- word."
Indeed, among most Americans, Bush doesn't either. Because surveys didn't ask, we don't know how many Americans hated past presidents. But now the question is being asked, and the answers show that only a small minority -- millions, to be sure -- claim to hate Bush. One poll in December found that 3 percent did. The hating may have been slightly higher in the Clinton presidency, because the same poll asked respondents whether they now hate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and 5 percent said they did. But the central conclusion is striking: Most Americans don't see themselves as haters.
If "hate" were used loosely (as in, say, "kids hate spinach"), the word choice would be harmless. But people who claim to hate really mean it, and that's serious. It signifies that you've gone beyond discussion, compromise or even (to some extent) coexistence. The differences are too basic to be bridged. Genuine political hatred is usually reserved for true tyrants, whose unspeakable acts of brutality justify nothing less.
More than the language is butchered. Once disagreement turns into self-proclaimed hate, it becomes blinding. You can see only one all-encompassing truth, which is your villain's deceit, stupidity, selfishness or evil. This was true of Clinton haters, and it's increasingly true of Bush haters. A small army of pundits and talking heads has now devoted itself to one story: the sins of Bush, Cheney and their supporters. They ruined the economy with massive tax cuts and budget deficits; the Iraq war was an excuse for corporate profiteering; their arrogance alienated foreign allies.
All ambiguity vanishes. For example: The economy is recovering, stimulated in part by huge budget deficits; and many traditional allies of the United States like having Bush as a political foil to excuse them from costly and unpopular commitments.
In the end, Bush hating says more about the haters than the hated -- and here, too, the parallels with Clinton are strong. This hatred embodies much fear and insecurity. The anti-Clinton fanatics hated him not simply because he occasionally lied, committed adultery or exhibited an air of intellectual superiority. What really infuriated them was that he kept succeeding -- he won reelection, his approval ratings stayed high -- and that diminished their standing. If Clinton was approved, they must be disapproved.
Ditto for Bush. If he succeeded less, he'd be hated less. His fiercest detractors don't loathe him merely because they think he's mediocre, hypocritical and simplistic. What they truly resent is that his popularity suggests that the country might be more like him than it is like them. They fear he's exiling them politically. On one level, their embrace of hatred aims to make others share their outrage; but on another level, it's a self-indulgent declaration of moral superiority -- something that makes them feel better about themselves. Either way, it represents another dreary chapter in the continuing coarsening of public discourse.
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