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10/20/2003 Archived Entry: "Bush Hating"

A LOOK AT BUSH-HATING: A great, even-handed profile of the phenomenon of Bush-hating by Howard Kurtz appeared in the Washington Post. It was brought on after The New Republic's Jonathan Chait admitted he hated President Bush and Byron York wrote an article about Bush-haters for National Review. This piece features quotes from Chait, York, Ramesh Ponnuru, David Brooks, Paul Krugman and others.

I would take issue with Hendrik Hertzberg's comment that Bush-hating is less personal than Clinton-hating. Hertzberg correctly observes that many conservatives hated Clinton in part because they saw him as a '60s hippie. But many liberals hate Bush because he is a Southern-accented, Middle-American-style born-again Christian. Elements on the left and the right hated Clinton and Bush respectively out of proportion to their policies - which in both cases are more moderate than many of their strongest supporters' preferences - because they each see them as symbols of what they dislike about the other side.

And as part of my ongoing campaign to show how ahead of the curve ESR is, I'd like to remind you of my piece on Bush-hating almost a year ago.

Replies: 1 Comment

Always ahead of the curve Jim!

Posted by Steven Martinovich @ 10/20/2003 01:34 AM EST