Great Article About * In The New Republic

I know some folks on this board have a problem with TNR because of it's staunch support of Israel and it's sometimes aggressive foreign policy however they have a proud tradition of pragmatic liberalism that exists to this day... Established in 1917 TNR has never endorsed a Republican candidate for president...

Enough with the foreplay....

They have a debate on Bush hatred between TNR editor ,Jonathan Chait ,and Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review.

Jonathan Chait rips Bush a new face...

"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(disguided 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 expectation 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 spalyed 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 chuminess(does anybody give their boss a nickname without their consent?) And, while
most people who meet Bush claim to like him . I suspect that, if I got to know him persoanlly, I would hate him even more."

There's about 2,000 more words but I can't transcribe them all

Touche


Here's a challenge - write your best "I Hate George Bush" post and I promise to donate $25.00 to the Democratic candidate of your choice."

The joy of reading these posts will be more than compensation enough...

You decide Bush is a dullard lacking any moral constraints in his pursuit of partisan gain, loyal to no principle save the comfort of the very rich, unburdened by any thoughtful consideration of the national interest, and a man who, on those occasions when he actually does make a correct decision, does so almost by accident.

You can access the articles at
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=debate&s=chaitponnuru092303

There's a refrain I think the USA needs until Nov 2004: Worst President Ever.

about is we shouldn't let our hatred of Bush lead us to make straregic and tactical errors in defeating him...

"Revenge is a dish best served cold..."

I concurr with Democrat Since Birth that we shouldn't let our animosity towards the incumbent cause us to make strategic and tactical errors against him, but I would elaborate further. We shouldn't let the incumbent personalize all the wrong things that the incumbent's fellow GOPsters are doing to the USA and the rest of the world.

It isn't just Bush--it's the Republican Party. Getting rid of Bush would be a good beginning, but there's a lot further to go to set things to rights again, and that means throwing out a lot of GOPster politicos appointed or elected. If we just trim the Shrub and leave a Republican-controlled House of Representatives and a Republican-controlled Senate in place, we're back where we were during the Clinton years.

pride in what ruin he has caused: jobs, the environment, the budget, international relations, civil rights, racism, and, of course, my personal favorite, changing US foreign policy so that we now invade countries who have not attacked or threatened us. Yes, the worst, by far the worst, administration in the history of the US, not only because of what they have done, but because it was intentional and they're proud of it. Truman at least seemed to feel bad that his bombing of Hiroshima has killed and injured thousands of innocent people. Of course, three days later he dropped another one. Nixon told Kissinger, "The difference between us is that you care about the innocent casualties in Cambodia." And Kissinger replied, "I only care because I don't want you to look evil." But chimpy is worse because he not only doesn't care, but he doesn't even pretend to care; in fact, he uses his aggression and psychopathy to appease the nuts in the US and to build a campaign strategy for 2004. Don't even get me started on the dirty tricks he used in the 2000 primaries and general election, or the rigged voting machines. I hate him. I hate him for how he has made us feel: hopeless and embarrassed. I hate him for calling us un-American. I hate him for having no shame, no shame at all. I hate him.

And I am sincere about the $25.00 offer...

I hate Bush because he is an arrogant phoney.

My candidate is Cappurr. I'll give you my address privately. :evilgrin:

OH. And I can rights lots and lots of essays. :evilgrin:

he's an arrogant, bumbling, cowardly, dumb, empty-headed, foolish, greedy, hypocritical, ignorant, judgemental, kleptomaniac, lying, moralizing, nationalistic, opportunistic, prejudiced, quarrelsome, right-wing, stupid, theocratic, useless, vain, war-loving, xenophobic, yellow zealot.

and they include his sociopathic disregard for everyone on the planet who has less money than, or who disagrees with him.

His mocking of Karla Faye Tucker. His total inability to empathize with anyone's hardship ("I know how hard it is to put food on your family").

As bartcop so eloquently stated it: I hate the way this sick bastard jokes about 9/11 ("lucky me, I hit the trifecta").

I hate the fact that he has so incurious a mind and is proud of it. It seems that he learned everything he needed to know a long time prior to kindergarten and hasn't allowed a thought to challenge him since.

I despise the fact that his friends and associates know he's a rube and run wild with malice because they know he won't stop them.

I intensely despise the fact that there will be so much that needs to repaired after he is turned out of office, and he will retire to a life of golf and corporate boards, laughing all the way to the bank.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, the infamous Talk magazine article by Tucker Carlson in which Bush lied about and maligned Karla Fae Tucker... He said she went on Larry King and said something like "Please spare me Mr. Governor."

No such thing happened....

"Please don't kill me."

That is fucking sadistic.

...and I have mixed feelings about the "Bush hate" meme. Positive: this is an attempt by the Rovian faction to manipulate perceptions that is likely to backfire. Their intention is to marginalize anti-Bush sentiment as pathological and extreme, but the result is more likely to be the opposite. The very notion that Bush is hatable has been unthinkable, unallowable, by the whore media ever since 9/11 and even 12/12. Now hearing the phrase "Bush hate" is making it thinkable. Negative: the whole discussion revolved around hatred of Bush's *policies* although Chait did get into some personal qualities. While his policies are indeed hateful, it's his personality/character that is so repulsive as to put him in a different category from any Republican predecessors.

Personally, I wouldn't say I hate Bush or anyone else, and consider "horrified incredulity" the best summation of my feelings about him. But I'm more horrified and incredulous that *such a person* could sit in the WH than by his policies. And getting the meme that he's a hateful person in circulation is very important to the coming victory.

CYD

That would be disasterous for them, good for us. Many folks will start hearing the constant Repub carping about how people "hate" Bush and as Bandwagon jumpers, might decide there's something to it.

The Bushite strategy of hammering this point could easily create a groundswell of dissatisfaction amongst the "undecided" (read uninformed) electorate.

But, as i said in another post, it may be all they have for a strategy.
The Professor

I hate George Bush. I say that as a condemnation of his conduct as president, but I'm sure I'd be just as repulsed if he were to hang out at my local pub.

He's the guy who crowds you on your bar stool, sticking his knee in your thigh because he's so damn insecure that he has to splay his legs as some sort of mammalian display of sexual ability -- like a baboon displaying his engourged pubic region.

He's the guy who puts a saw buck in the juke box and loads it up with songs from the bottom of the playlist: Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A.," "God, Country and My Baby," "Sweet Home Alabama," "The Ballad of the Green Barets," "Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly," and anything by Charlie Daniels except "The Devil Went Down to Georgia."

He's the guy who doesn't like lesbians in the bar, until they start kissing.

He's the guy who will ask the bartender to change the TV channel from a World Cup Soccer match to "something Amerikun," like the local arena football game.

He's the guy who will buy Jim Beam shots for twelve out of the fourteen people in the bar. Smiling at the excluded two as he loudly proposes a toast: "Liquor in the front, liquor in the rear. Liquor did you say? You brought her here." He'll then leave a religious tract in the tip jar for his $50 tab.

But, despite my expectation that he's the guy I'd despise should he ever make it down to "my" bar, I have less speculative reasons to hate George Bush.

I hate him quite simply for what he has done to America. I hate that he has sapped all enthusiasm for anything good and righteous, and created a world where fear and nationalism are used to create passion for the worst that America and Americans can possibly be.

No longer are peace, benevolence, cooperation, fairness or the rule of law high values. Instead, we are called to elevate to the highest levels of patriotism, war, suspicion, ignorance, arrogance and mendacity. For this, I hate George Bush. I want my country back.

posts are so good that I'd ask to be released from my candidate pledge and give $25.00 to D U...


"He's the guy who doesn't like lesbians in the bar, until they start kissing"

Priceless.....

huh?

I didn't think of the awkward position this puts me in.....

Your "take" rocked but so did the others...

I didn't realize how awkward it would be for me to choose from different posters....

I'd prefer to donate the $25.00 to D U for the enjoyment it has brought me and the other posters...

It's your money...

As such, any discussion of b*sh hate between those two is leaving out or marginalizing a very critical detail. If you want to write an article about b*sh hate, find a genuine b*sh-hater to write it.

Like Ted Rall:

http://www.uexpress.com/tedrall/

Here's an old chestnut from the early days of my loathing of Bush, when he was still a candidate and it was OK to say he was a moron:

*************************
What you are about to read is what rhetoricians call an ad hominem argument. As anyone will tell you, ad hominem arguments are logically flawed and should not be considered convincing. When you sit down to write a persuasive argument, please remember never to resort to any of the scurrilous, cheap, and logically bankrupt tactics I am about to employ. Thank you.

I HATE GEORGE W! I HATE HIM I HATE HIM I HATE HIM! OH GOD DO I HATE HIM!!

Sorry. I've been avoiding writing the Dubya critique for a number of reasons. One, Dubya critiques himself every time he opens his mouth or performs an action. Two, there is no honor in going after an opponent who clearly has no means of defending himself. Three, I can't talk about Dubya for very long without going

I HATE HIM! I HATE HATE HATE HATE HIM! IT'S UNBELIEVABLE HOW MUCH I JUST HATE THE SOUND OF THE BASTARD'S VOICE! AND THE ONLY THING WORSE THAN LISTENING TO HIM IS LOOKING AT HIM!

And that's really not what you'd call productive or rational debate. And yet, I cannot get away from the fact that Dubya makes my skin crawl and my blood pressure rise, even over and above my normal response to any Republican. So here I sit, trying to answer the question, "What makes me hate George W. so much more than I ever hated Reagan or Bush Sr.?"

I was discussing this with some friends of mine and one of them suggested that Dubya may evoke a special kind of hatred in educators. In her words, "He's just got that look on his face that says, 'I didn't do the reading, but I bet I can make her think I did.'" I think this is an excellent point of entry from which to being to explore my deep-seated personal antipathy toward him. Because it's true: he reminds me of every student I ever had who didn't do the reading, showed up to class hungover or not at all, got a D, and then bitched about it.

In fact, I think that's the answer. Like that archetypal D student, who often is admitted only because his father is contributing toward the construction of the new biology building, Dubya did not get to where he is on his own merits; if he were not the son of George Herbert Walker Bush, he would be a struggling aluminum siding salesman somewhere near Amarillo. And yet, like that D student, Dubya refuses to see the gap between his abilities and his success as the result of privilege, assuming instead that he is entitled to money and power through some divine right of succession. And, like those D students, Dubya staunchly decries affirmative action, despite the fact that he has been benefiting from the "Good Old Boy" version of it all his life.

From that sense of entitlement grows the massive irresponsibility that one finds so infuriating about the archetypal D student. We've all seen it: the student who has been blowing off work all semester and comes to you the week before the final trying to convince you not to flunk him; the student who, when you explain to him that you have found the website from which he plagiarized his entire term paper, reacts with outrage and injury rather than remorse. The idea that one's grade for the course is intimately linked to the amount of effort one puts into it, and that one's decision to fail to show up, fail to hand in written work, or steal one's work wholesale from another source might have consequences, often appears to be completely foreign and baffling to these students, who apparently are unused to being held accountable for their own actions. All of Dubya's responses to virtually any question about his present or past behavior betray the same unfamiliarity with the concept of personal responsibility. Which is ironic, given the stress the Republican party has traditionally placed on personal responsibility as applied to the poor, racial minorities, unwed mothers, and the like.

This is just one of many reasons that the fact that Dubya has made education the centerpiece of his platform is the most grotesque and cruel irony of a campaign that is itself a bitter cosmic joke. Dubya is, in fact, a walking demonstration of the impotence of education in the face of privilege. Having had the best education that money could buy or influence secure, Dubya has emerged from Yale unable to complete a sentence without embarrassing himself, paining his listeners and butchering the English language. When not performing like a trained seal under controlled conditions, as he was during the Republican Convention, Dubya is an unmitigated disaster. Witness his response to the charge of subliminal advertising in his anti-Gore ads, in which one is hard put to determine which is more depressing: his knee-jerk refusal to accept responsibility, his peevish and whining tone, or his inability to pronounce the word "subliminal."

What has allowed Dubya to emerge from the Ivy League with his ignorance and idiocy intact? My guess is laziness. Why should he bother learning stuff when he can coast through life in his daddy's wake? Which makes the idea that Dubya will be bringing "character" back to the White House the second most grotesque irony of his campaign. I think that it is true that we can trust Dubya to refrain from screwing his interns in the Oval Office. But that does not mean that Dubya has "character." In fact, from what I can see, Dubya has less "character" than just about anyone else in politics. To wit:


He has never had to work a day in his life, and doesn't have plans to start.

His only response, when challenged or questioned, tends to be a petulant whine which translates roughly as, "Mom! Make Cindy stop picking on me!"

His platform changes from minute to minute, since the only real plank in it is "I want to be President cause it's my turn."

Not only does Dubya not know who the prime minister of Canada is, he doesn't see why he should have to. After all, nobody told him it was going to be on the test.

Even his father realizes he can't be trusted with the job, which is why he assigned Dick Cheney the job of babysitting him.

In short, Dubya is a spoiled brat. And because he is a spoiled brat, we cannot expect good government from him. The brat disregards all other considerations in order to serve his own selfish needs. The brat cannot be appealed to in the name of decency, honor, compassion, or even pragmatism. The brat will only do what the brat wants to do; and what the brat usually wants to do is enjoy himself at the expense of those over whom he has power. The brat, in other words, is closely related to the asshole, which as you will remember is the root of all political and social evil.

********************
All still true,

The Plaid Adder

which show how this "hate Bush" strategy come from the VRWC- again, to spin the obvious into an attack against "liberals" and Democrats.

The article is in fact a shill article to tar the good guys. A lousy strategy, admittedly, but they'll brazen anything.

MY hatred for that arrogant, ignorant, mean-spirited, small-minded, greedy, sanctimonious election thief, rat-bastard CHICKENHAWK.

I don't care what they think it is or what they think they can manipulate with it.

It doesn't change my opinion, which was developed during the 2000 campaign when I got to know him a little better as a candidate, and as a "man." I just kept finding things about him that I didn't like. A LOT. And my hatred just grew from there.

Then he stole the election.

Then he surrounded himself with all those pirates.

Then he declared it'd be easier if this were a dictatorship and he was the dictator.

Then he started systematically to up-end everything in our country, our heritage, our Constitution and our Bill of Rights.

Then he robbed the poor to overfeed the rich.

Then he ignored all the warnings about possible terror threats.

Then he joked about hitting the "trifecta," and proceeded to exploit our fear.

Then he decided now was the time when he just HAD to go to war.

Then he insulted and scorned all our friends and turned them into opponents.

Then he ...

Well, I could go on, but I'd use up this board and nobody'd have time to read through anything here!

But, suffice it to say, I HATE HIS GUTS! I HATE HIM AS I'VE NEVER FOUND IT IN MY OWN GUTS TO HATE ANYBODY! But then again, I've never in my life run across anyone who's so DAMNED DESERVING!!!

I couln't post the entire article...

He gives substantive reasons to hate Bush......

I only offered a snippet

For his complete bastardization of the concept of christianity.

Because of the role model that he has set for my children. If he weren't a privileged, spoiled, arrogant frat-rat he'd be nothing short of a drunken gutter snipe. He's demonstrated to them that you don't have to apply yourself, work hard, play by the rules, etc., as long as you have a family with a lot of money and power you can have an arrest record, be incapable of putting a grammatically correct sentence together, act like an arrogant moron and still end up in the Oval Office!

Because I've heard all of my children talk about nuclear winter, nuclear weapons and their fears that these weapons will be used with greater frequency over the past 2 years. He's caused me to wonder whether I should have had these 3 wonderful little people. After the selection I could visualize their futures being flushed down a toilet and it only looks worse now.

Because he feeds on hate, ignorance and greed.

'Nuff said or do you need more?

loathsome prick!!

Then there's the mean streak, the "ain't I cool" rich boy demeaner, the disdainful curl to the upper ip when he confronts something he doesn't like.
I loathe the way he ducks and dodges loopily while addressing a group - particularly when he wants to win them over.
I hate his clothes, both the Brooks Brothers type and the L.L. Bean casuals he dons at his phony ranch.
I hate his phony ranch and that pickup truck he drives around with the dog next to him. I hate his dogs - both that spotted prop and the black prop he dropped on the cement.
I hate the Stepford Laura, I hate the bratty twins who don't even look alike. I hate his brothers and his parents and even that sister we never see.
I hate the little American flag pin he wears, the way he squints and his eyebrows that look like they are about to fly off his head. I hate his cruel mouth and beady eyes and sharply pointed ears.

He always looks like the type who doesn't bother with the blow-dryer, or the gel, or even the Brylcreem.

Towel-dry, comb, go.

I hate that.

This thread is so good I donated $25.00 to DU

Peace 03

Brian

for the first time in my 52 years of life! i had never thought it possible...:grr: :grr: :grr: