Friday, September 19, 2003

Loving Bush or Stigmatizing Dissent? (Pt. 1 of 2)

"Democrats really hate Bush!" I've been hearing a lot of stuff along those lines lately from Republicans. So I've been following up on the idea a little bit.

The first one I heard advancing the notion that Democrats were somehow going overboard because of an emotional hatred of Bush was from conservative columnist David Brooks, who wrote a piece on the topic for the Weekly Standard. He also mentioned it in his regular gig opposite Mark Shields on the PBS Newshour.

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal's Weblog has also taken up the theme, for instance in this piece whose title in their archives claims, "Two years later, some Americans hate the president more than the terrorists."  He says that after the 2002 elections, "the Democrats lost control of themselves."

A Congressman from Arizona picks it up for the National Review.  He says, "Bush hating addles the mind and rots the senses."

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer does a version for Time, calling it "the unhinging of the Democratic Party."

And, for the lowbrow version, who better than our friend Chuckie (CHARLIE DANIELS)?

Some journalists like to use the word "meme" for something like this, an idea that is picked up and gets repeated over and over, not necessarily because there's anything to it.

It's actually an example of conservatives attempting to stigmatize dissent. But I'll say more about that in part 2.

No comments: