[finnman69]

Why Bush Angers Liberals(Michael Kinsley Barf Fest)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/996109/posts

Why Bush Angers Liberals

We have our reasons, and that is why we're so pragmatic about 2004

By MICHAEL KINSLEY

Conservatives are alarmed about the tone of our political debate. Interviewed last week in TIME, Fox TV talk-show host Bill O'Reilly trumped the standard definition of chutzpah — a man who kills his parents, then pleads for mercy as an orphan — by complaining that the country is "as polarized as it's ever been in the history of the Republic." In TIME two weeks ago, essayist Charles Krauthammer expressed astonishment at the level of antagonism toward President Bush among liberals. Newly anointed New York Times columnist David Brooks has deplored both the viciousness and the shallowness of today's politics, compared with the Athenian atmosphere he recalls in the 1980s.

Oddly, Brooks and Krauthammer offer nearly opposite diagnoses of today's caustic tone. Krauthammer says liberals are angry because Bush has turned out to be a more ideological and more effective President than they expected. The anger, in other words, is over substance. Brooks, by contrast, complains that earlier disputes over cultural values and ideology have molted their substance and turned into rival but trivial assessments of the President as a person.

So why are liberals so angry? Here is a view from inside the beast: it's Bush as a person and his policies as well. To start, we do think he stole the election. Yes, yes, we're told to "get over it," and we've been pretty damned gracious. But we can't help it: this still rankles. What rankles especially is Bush's almost total lack of grace about the extraordinary way he took office. Theft aside, he indisputably got fewer votes than the other guy, our guy. We expected some soothing bipartisan balm. There was none, even after 9/11. (Would it have been that hard to appoint a Democrat as head of Homeland Security, in a "bring us together" spirit?)

We also thought that Bush's apparent affability, and his lack of knowledge or strong views or even great interest in policy issues, would make him temperate on the ideological thermometer. (Psst! We also thought, and still think, he's pretty dumb — though you're not supposed to say it and we usually don't. And we thought that this too would make him easier to swallow.) It turns out, though, that Bush's, um, unreflectiveness shores up his ideological backbone. An adviser who persuades Bush to adopt Policy X does not have to be worried that our President will keep turning it over in his mind, monitoring its progress, reading and thinking about the complaints of its critics, perhaps even re-examining it on the basis of subsequent developments, and announce one day that he prefers Policy Y. This does not happen. He knows what he thinks, and he has to be told it only once.

This dynamic works on facts just as it does on policies, making Bush a remarkably successful liar. This too is unexpected. There seemed to be something guileless and nonneurotic about Bush when we first made his acquaintance. It was the flip side of his, um, dimness and seemed to promise frankness if nothing else. But guess what? Ignorance and lack of curiosity are terrific fortifications for dishonesty. Bill Clinton knew that he had had sex with that woman and had to work hard to convince himself that he hadn't. Bush neither knew nor cared whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or close connections to al-Qaeda when he started to say so, and once he started, mere lack of evidence was not going to make him stop.

Just this week, responding to the brouhaha about the alleged White House outing of an undercover CIA agent, Bush declared that he takes leaks very seriously and deplores them. Liberals across America screamed into their TV sets, "But that leak was in the papers two months ago, and you did nothing about it until the fuss started last weekend!" If Bush could hear them, he might furrow his brow in puzzlement and say, "And your point is?" Steeped as liberals are in irony, it took us a while to learn what a powerful tool an irony-free mind can be.

Screaming powerlessly at a defenseless television set is a metaphor for the sense of powerlessness that unites these elements in liberal rage. In the 1980s, liberals nursed the fear that we really might be dwelling in an irrelevant cul-de-sac outside of the majority American culture. That kept us sullen and mopey. Today we feel that our side got the most votes, and it didn't matter. This man then sold a war to the country based on fictions, and it didn't matter. It didn't even matter if he hadn't made the sale, since he mainly asserted the right to invade another country. And Krauthammer is right: we didn't think he had the heart or the brains for anything like this. It's maddening.

Krauthammer is wrong, though, to suppose that anger is driving liberals to self-defeating ideological extremes. The mood is not suicidal. It is comically pragmatic. The comment you hear most often about the Democratic primary race is, "All I care about is sparing the country four more years of that &*!!@#$%!" It's sweet when liberals try to be cynical and hard-headed. If I were a conservative, I wouldn't be too worried.

[scooter2]

Let the Dumbocratic monkeys howl from the tree tops. They will still find that there is no fruit left on the branches. As for armed conflict, count me in.

[Poohbah]

In the end, if they STILL lose, then expect a plunge by the Angry Left into some new level of denial and an increased effort to lash out at conservatives in general and the President in particular. Liberals will posture and condemn the whole process; they will demean the Governor-elect, and plot ways to scare Americans into thinking that Republicans are actively subverting the democratic process in America. It will be a sad and disturbing sight, no doubt.

Expect to see the rise of conspiracy-mongering leftist militias. Expect to see Howard Dean talking about black helicopters, the Illuminati, the Bildebergers, and the Protocols of the Most Learned Elders of Zion.

[Saundra Duffy]

Just checking in - the angry right from California.

[Kenton]

This reminds me , I must slip on over to DU and lurk for awhile, they should be in a fine mood today...hehehe

[EdReform]

Bump & Ping

[Jack Black]

"California, THE liberal bastion in America,"

Does he know California? I would hardly call it the liberal bastion. That might be Mass. When I moved to Cali in the early 80s there were strong Republican representatives, the R's controlled one house.

Until the last 10 years it was a balanced state, that could go either way. Remember America's greatest conservative President was a former Governor of California.

California had few gun laws as late as 1990. Contrast this with places like New York, Mass, and D.C. Those are the real liberal bastions. California is a state that has been invaded and taken over by Democrats, in part using illegal voters to throw elections.

It has been a high tax state, but it has also consistently brought tax-fighting to the forefront. It passed Prop. 13, the property tax limitation measure that was duplicated elsewhere.

I hesitate to take too seriously an article which includes such an obvious and prominant gaff.

[wireman]

"Then, in 2000, George W. Bush defeated then V.P. Al Gore to become the 42nd President of The United States."

Ahem... G.W. Bush is the 43rd President.

[aculeus]

One scenario apparently unmentioned. If AS wins the Dems will immediately organize another RECALL election.

If a powerful vote getter like Podesta or Feinstein runs AS could be out in a matter of months.

[beckett]

He spelt Gray Davis the Barbara Steisand way.

[aculeus]

They're already organizing riots for the GOP convention in NYC.

[teeples]

I thought they WERE enraged! lol...

[desertcry]

Indeed, the democrat left will sell their children, grand mothers and will burn the USA to the ground to hold on to power. Sadly for the USA, they have the power to do it (they own the media, the judicial system, they have the homosexuals, the aclu, the feminists, the majority of the blacks, and the hispanics, the trial layers, the unions,....).
The majority, which are mostly sheeples will sit on the sidelines and watch the country burn.

[Publius6961]

Bring it on losers.
Violence is the last refuge of the mindless. And the losers.

"Palestinians" anyone?

[cardinal4]

Sounds like you nailed it. Voter initimidation is the reason Im going to be a judge next year in Saint Louis County. If you reacll, STL had its share of the abovementioned tactics in 2000. I will be there to make sure bus loads of migrant farm workers dont pull up with shiny new voter registration cards, twenty dollar bills, and new drivers lisence's in their pockets. Another favorite ploy of STL democrats is getting homeless people to vote by bribing them with booze..

[slimer]

They’ll do whatever it takes to retain power, and the law or the will of the people will not stand in their way if they can help it.

They can't help it. The are Sore Losers!

[Southack]

It does actually get interesting in California. Right now Democrats are fighting to **keep** their lowest-rated, most universally disliked politician in their multi-century history **in office**!

Say what you will, the Democrats did **not** expect to be spending money defending their worst politician on their own home turf in 2003. Truth be told, the Democrats need all the money that they can muster just to stem their predicted Senate losses nationally in 2004, much less to fight their House fights and run a competitive Presidential campaign.

And the more that they spend contesting the 2003 recall, the better. California law says that any citizen may request a recount, but that citizen has to pay for it out of her pocket. So let Bing spend his money on a recount that will still put Arnold in the governor's mansion; that's just so much less money that he'll be inclined to donate to national Democratic Party candidates in '04.

And what's their upside? Remaining stuck with their lowest rated, least popular governor Davis still in office even if they "win" today?!

Moreover, the Democrats are going to have to fight the referendum against SB60 that is coming up in California. They could concievably lose two major battles on their home turf in a matter of only a few months apart. And winning that battle to give licenses to illegals is going to cost the Democrats dearly in more Conservative parts of the country, so again, even **winning** their SB60 fight will have grave repercussions for their Party.

Strategically, the Democrats are repeating their 1998 mistake of supporting Bill Clinton at all costs. The costs are dear. Fighting every battle is seldom wise. Most success stories come from those who pick and choose their battles rather than from those who fight everyone everywhere everytime. The Democrats should have stabbed Gray Davis in the heart with a political stake. They should have run him out of Sacramento, never letting the recall get far enough to gather enough signatures to qualify. Bustamante would have been a national hero if the Democrats had done that one thing, and in one fell swoop the Democrats would have replaced their least popular governor with their new Hispanic hero.

Thankfully, the Democrats in power inside the Party itself are all amatuers now, so such strategy remains beyond their grasp.

So should the Democrats suffer grievously in today's recall election, and should the Democrats get crushed backing SB60 against the Republican referendum, then it will come time to increase our own funding for the Greens, such that Camejo and Nader draw in 1/3 or more of the newly demoralized Leftists in California; a move that would slice up the Democratic Party into bites small enough for our Elephant to tastily munch upon for a few decades.

[mushroom]

If one felon getting beaten on TV started riots, what's the odds that losing the governorship will do the same? If Ahnuld is on the ball, he'll already have the order calling out the National Guard drafted and ready to go.

[Revolting cat!]

I've re-read yor article and all the posts and I hope you're just paranoid!

Other than that, the Left has for long been looney, hasn't it? Nothing will change outside of Berzerkeley, (and, oh, Lawrence, Kansas, in case anyone still thinks Berzerkeley is an exception), I predict. After all, the Left, the establishement Left is winning! They've got the judiciary, and, as the recent confirmation battles show, they'll keep it, thank you.

But more than that, the Left dominates, why, it dictates the national discourse. The issue of the day, like the national obsessions with "racism" and with the so-called "poor", and the AIDS epidemic or the so-called widespread corporate wrongdoing, or the human rights for the animals, have all come out of the Left's brainstorms and focus groups.

Let the Berserk Left in university towns and in Hollywood go batty! The more they do it the more they expose the insanity of the entire side of the spectrum. Let's do our best, I say, to encourage them even!

[jonalvy44]

locked and loaded