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

Do some Democrats hate George W. Bush? Of course. Politics is politics. But the articles to which I referred in Part 1 argue that Democrats are generally seized with an irrational hatred for Bush comparable to the Republican obsession with Bill Clinton, from Vince Foster conspiracy theories to Whitewater to impeachment over a rather sad love affair.

So is there anything to the idea? Actually, not much. The evidence cited in the articles I mentioned in Part 1 are mostly examples of Democrats disagreeing with Bush, or instances of what are, at worst, examples of partisan rhetorical hyperbole.  For example, both Brooks and Krauthammer cite an article by Harold Meyerson which ends by comparing Bush to Jefferson Davis.

Now, even if one thinks the comparison is excessive, is it evidence of hate-mongering? Only if you think having someone's name associated with Jefferson Davis is an extremely scandalous thing. Brooks and Krauthammer should clue in some of their Republican friends like John Ashcroft and Trent Lott, who are known for kissing up the the "neo-Confederate" movement.

So what's going on? It's actually a continuation of a strategy articulated by Newt Gingrich during the height of his "Republican Revolution" a decade ago. As Joe Conason reports in his book Big Lies, Gingrich advised Republican candidates that when they talked about Democrats, they should "emphasize terms like decay, sick, liberal, permissive attitude, antifamily and bizarre." The Democrats-hate-Bush theme provides an opportunity for more of that.

Krauthammer's piece is a good example. Accepting it as a given that Democrats are seized with irrational hatred for Good President Bush, he describes their alleged emotions with terms like "unhinging of the Democratic Party ... contempt ... disdain ... hatred ... near pathological ... depth of feeling ... fury and bitterness ... explosive ... primal anti-Bush feeling ... anger ... seething ... loathing ... desperately ... seized with a fever."  Gosh, sounds bad.

In other words, the Democrats should muzzle their criticisms andbe nicey-nice. While the Michael Savages and Ann Coulters of the world continue to howl about the alleged depravity of the Democrats.