New Republic Senior Editor Admits Hating Bush
Now will everyone start labelling the New Republic "radical left" anytime they quote it or interview someone from it? I doubt it. Maybe "left", but probably not "fringe left".
His column relates lots of half-truths ("Certainly Clinton had his defenders and admirers, but no similar cult of personality." and "While liberals have pretty much quit questioning Bush's competence . . . .") and outright deceptions (" . . . liberals do not see their view of Bush given public expression." and "Just as mainstream Democrats and liberals ceased to question Bush's right to hold office, so too did they cease to question his intelligence." and "I was (and remain) a supporter of the war in Iraq. But the way Bush sold it--by playing upon the public's erroneous belief that Saddam had some role in the September 11 attacks . . . .").
To this last point, he argues that the only time you hear anyone bring up the "Bush is stupid" gambit is to debunk it. I want to know what papers this guy reads or what evening news he watches. He quotes no example of this. He certainly does not show this to be a widespread phenomenon as he seems to be claiming. He does talk about how making fun of Bush's intelligence is a bad play, as ranked by political pundits, but that does not do anything toward demonstrating his most-media-deny-Bush's-lack-of-intelligence angle.
He makes some good points (e.g. "Have Bush haters lost their minds? Certainly some have. Antipathy to Bush has, for example, led many liberals not only to believe the costs of the Iraq war outweigh the benefits but to refuse to acknowledge any benefits at all, even freeing the Iraqis from Saddam Hussein's reign of terror.")
At one point he says, "The trouble with this parallel is, first, that this sort of Bush-hating is entirely confined to the political fringe. . . . The Clinton haters, on the other hand, drew from the highest ranks of the Republican Party and the conservative intelligentsia." As if statements by Senator Kennedy and Democratic presidential candidates (three different links) did not reflect the "highest ranks" of the party nor its "intelligensia". Is that really what he wants to say here?
The New Republic Online: Mad About You
I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it. I think his policies rank him among the worst presidents in U.S. history. And, while I'm tempted to leave it at that, the truth is that I hate him for less substantive reasons, too. I hate the inequitable way he has come to his economic and political achievements and his utter lack of humility (disguised behind transparently false modesty) at having done so. His favorite answer to the question of nepotism--'I inherited half my father's friends and all his enemies'--conveys the laughable implication that his birth bestowed more disadvantage than advantage. He reminds me of a certain type I knew in high school--the kid who was given a fancy sports car for his sixteenth birthday and believed that he had somehow earned it. I hate the way he walks--shoulders flexed, elbows splayed out from his sides like a teenage boy feigning machismo. I hate the way he talks--blustery self-assurance masked by a pseudo-populist twang. I even hate the things that everybody seems to like about him. I hate his lame nickname-bestowing-- a way to establish one's social superiority beneath a veneer of chumminess (does anybody give their boss a nickname without his consent?). And, while most people who meet Bush claim to like him, I suspect that, if I got to know him personally, I would hate him even more.
