Posted on 09/16/2003 3:48:13 PM PDT by .cnI redruM
Bill Moyers may have his politics, but his deferential demeanor and almost avuncular television style made him the Mr. Rogers of American politics. So when he leaves his neighborhood to go to a "Take Back America" rally and denounces George W. Bush's "government of, by and for the ruling corporate class," leading a "right-wing wrecking crew" engaged in "a deliberate, intentional destruction of the United States way of governing," you know that something is going on.
That something is the unhinging of the Democratic Party. Democrats are seized with a loathing for President Bush a contempt and disdain giving way to a hatred that is near pathological unlike any since they had Richard Nixon to kick around. An otherwise reasonable man, Julian Bond of the N.A.A.C.P., speaks of Bush's staffing his Administration with "the Taliban wing of American politics." Harold Meyerson, editor at large of The American Prospect, devotes a 3,000-word article to explaining why Bush is the most dangerous President in all of American history his only rival being Jefferson Davis.
The puzzle is where this depth of feeling comes from. Bush's manner is not particularly aggressive. He has been involved in no great scandals, Watergate or otherwise. He is, indeed, not the kind of politician who radiates heat. Yet his every word and gesture generate heat a fury and bitterness that animate the Democratic primary electorate and explain precisely why Howard Dean has had such an explosive rise. More than any other candidate, Dean has understood the depth of this primal anti-Bush feeling and has tapped into it.
Whence the anger? It begins of course with the "stolen" election of 2000 and the perception of Bush's illegitimacy. But that is only half the story. An illegitimate President winning a stolen election would be tolerable if he were just a figurehead, a placeholder, the kind of weak, moderate Republican that Democrats (and indeed many Republicans) thought George Bush would be, judging from his undistinguished record and tepid 2000 campaign. Bush's great crime is that he is the illegitimate President who became consequential revolutionizing American foreign policy, reshaping economic policy and dominating the political scene ever since his emergence as the post-9/11 war President.
Before that, Bush could be written off as an accident, a transitional figure, a kind of four-year Gerald Ford. And then came 9/11. Bush took charge, declared war, and sent the country into battle twice, each time bringing down enemy regimes with stunning swiftness. In Afghanistan, Bush rode a popular tide; Iraq, however, was a singular act of presidential will.
That will, like it or not, has remade American foreign policy. The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy is the subtitle of a new book by two not very sympathetic scholars, Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay. The book is titled America Unbound. The story of the past two years could just as well be titled Bush Unbound. The President's unilateral assertion of U.S. power has redefined America's role in the world. Here was Bush breaking every liberal idol: the ABM Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, deference to the U.N., subservience to the "international community." It was an astonishing performance that left the world reeling and the Democrats seething. The pretender had not just seized the throne. He was acting like a king. Nay, an emperor.
On the domestic front, more shock. Democrats understand that the Bush tax cuts make structural changes that will long outlive him. Like the Reagan cuts, they will starve the government of revenue for years to come. Add to that the Patriot Act and its (perceived) assault on fundamental American civil liberties, and Bush the Usurper becomes more than just consequential. He becomes demonic.
The current complaint is that Bush is a deceiver, misleading the country into a war, after which there turned out to be no weapons of mass destruction. But it is hard to credit the deception charge when every intelligence agency on the planet thought Iraq had these weapons and, indeed, when the weapons there still remain unaccounted for. Moreover, this is a post-facto rationale. Sure, the aftermath of the Iraq war has made it easier to frontally attack Bush. But the loathing long predates it. It started in Florida and has been deepening ever since Bush seized the post-9/11 moment to change the direction of the country and make himself a President of note.
Which is why the Democratic candidates are scrambling desperately to out-Dean Dean. Their constituency is seized with a fever, and will nominate whichever candidate feeds it best. Political fevers are a dangerous thing, however. The Democrats last came down with one in 1972--and lost 49 states.
Democrats hate Bush because irrational hatred and contempt is what they do best. Every time GW side-steps a trap, beats them in a double-shuffle, gives them room to make a choice with the full knowledge that they will pick the one that will do themselves the most damage, a few more people wake up to the fact they have been played for fools by the clintons.
I offer, as an example, all the temples in the US who could send money to the Jewish Defense League AND the democrat's party.
I'm not a member of the so-called "ruling corporate class" and I wholeheartedly support President Bush. I have lots of relatives, none of which are corporate bigwigs or wealthy, who support Dubya. And what does Bill Moyers seem to be? He's not exactly a member of the hardworking middle "class" (Can you tell I dislike using that term?) and you can go on down the list of those Dim candidates and pretty much say the same about them. The "richest" member of my immediate family is the one who hates President Bush with a passion. Is the world upsidedown or what?
Yes, I agree that Dubya may be perceived as betraying his class -- and thus rejecting the same elitism that the Democrats AND French seem to share....
Great -- Tell 'em we'll meet at Mel Gibson's house in the year 2023 and recreate that last scene from 'Patriot.'
This is spiritual warfare, to be sure, and it's not hard to tell what side the Democrat party is on......
Anyone have the same reaction I did to these sentences? What did Krauthammer fall asleep during his essay? He didn't call Bush the "so-called pretender" and as such Krauthammer seems to be pandering to his Time Magazine audience, even as he deconstructs Dem reasoning, if any. If Bush's opponent, Al Whatshisname, was blindsided by the existence of the Electoral College, he wasn't smart enough to be president. Moreover, how many kings or emperors does Krauthammer know that have gone before the UN Security Council and gotten a 15-0 vote to take serious enforcement measures against Iraq if Saddam doesn't comply with 17 resolutions or go into exile?
Dems hate Bush because his successes frustrate them, the war on terror gives Republicans a long-term advantage, the stock market/economy/jobs are coming back strongly in time for 2004, Bush has taken (or has the potential to take)nearly every other issue away from Democrats with the help of two houses of Congress, the Dem instinct is to ridicule intelligence/demonize individuals/mischaracterize issues and it's not working this time, their circus of dwarf candidate hopefuls is weak/extreme -- foreboding another McGovern-like loss, and they have no one to blame but themselves and their anti-Bush/anti-America policies. Like it's hard to admit you're wrong, that everything you believe in is meaningless or self-destructive, and that Dems will have to live with that situation for many years. (Whew, glad I got that off my chest.)
How? By extending the depression 9 more years and then selling out to Stalin?
With this difference - Clinton was a liar, a cheat, and committed demonstrable damage. Monica Lewinski was a security breach, Clinton's pardons obvious quid pro quos. How come Bush doesn't have a comparable string of dead bodies surrounding him?
Bush really has nowhere near the number of lightening rod issues to be hated. That doesn't mean his political decisions are correct, just that they are political, not venomous.
When Moyers says that Bush is attempting "a deliberate, intentional destruction of the United States way of governing," he offers no examples. Republicans could actually number the ways in which Clinton was underming the constitution- not with hysterics about the "paytriot act" and the ways it could be used wrongly- but with real examples of criminality and utter disreagrd for the law.
And when it comes to the war in Iraq (which I oppossed and continue to do) Democrats and liberal blow hards like Al Franken and Moyers were utterly silent during Clintons almost unbelievable abuse of the use of military power based on total lies in Serbia and his two wag the bombings in Sudan and Iraq (he bombed Iraq the night before the impaeachment vote!)
Liberals have zero credibility when it comes to critcizing a basically decent man like Bush while they defended the totally obvious criminility of the sociopath Clinton for 8 loooong years.
I just blows my mind those liberals can't see its all Clinton's fault.
Actually- the scary thing is that I believe most of them do know how bad Clinton was. Do you actually think Gephardt, Kerry, Terry Macauliffe, believe a word they say? I don't. They are corrupt power hungary gangsters. There isn't one elected democrat who actually believes the policies they advovate will help anyone but themselves.
Such short memories. Democrat's hate this President no more than they hated any other prior sitting Republican President. Their strategy to bring him down will be pretty much the same as with prior Republicans. Paint him as far right, and mentally not up to snuff. Then attempt to win the swing voters against him, without turning off the hard core Democrat.
Their problem, is finding a candidate that will win the hard core, while also reassuring the swing voter that they are not to far out. For Democrats, this as alway creates a real world dilemma.
C'mon, Charles. You know this line is bogus. Between 58% and 70% supported the war in Iraq.
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