Do you consider yourself a "bush-hater"?

MaineYooper

(555 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Fri Jan-14-05 02:26 PM
Original message

Do you consider yourself a "bush-hater"?

Edited on Fri Jan-14-05 02:34 PM by MaineYooper

I did a search in the archives, and found a few old topics on this, but I'd like to see a fresh discussion of it. As the subject says, the question is:

Do you consider yourself to be a "Bush-hater"?

I ask because while I find the administration to be reprehensible and malfeasant in their policies, I try very hard to keep my criticisms on a professional level and base them on the policies and actions, rather than on either personality or style. I find that I don't like his mannerisms, but I'm a lifelong northerner, and I've spent most of my adult life in either university or research settings, so his combination of Texas swagger, and alleged (more on that later) "plain speak" offend me, but Bill Clinton's style also bothered me, so I'm willing to admit that this is my bias. My point is that I could tolerate Bush's presentation style if the policies and actions behind it weren't (in my opinion) so dangerous and wrong-headed.

This speaks volumes to the just released article (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1149389) in which Bush is now willing to admit that his words, or presentation style may have hurt our diplomatic efforts (duh!). This is highly reminiscent of his acceptance speech at the Repub convention this summer, in which some argued he used some self-effacing humor to poke fun at himself. The problem with this assessment is that if you go back and look at what he said, as with the current situation, the only errors he's willing to admit to are those of style. There's never a hint that any of his actions or policies (or those of his administration) are wrong; it's just that because he's "plain spoken (insert annoying chuckle here)", he doesn't do as well at communicating as he should. I'm afraid that I don't see this as self-effacing at all, and as I said above, as much as I find his style annoying, I could tolerate it if his policies weren't so frightening.

There is another, probably more serious, issue here, as well. (And one that was brought up in the past in other threads/posts) The right/conservative crowd (and by extension, their voices in the MSM) essentially are trying to minimize or discount our criticisms of this president and administration, by writing it off as "hatred." This reduces our complaints to irrational attacks, rather than valid criticisms/complaints. If it's just hatred, then there's no validity, and no reason to look closely to see if there is any substance to the criticism.

I guess for this reason, I'd recommend that we bend over backwards in our fights/arguments with the freeper (and associated) crowds to base the criticism on actions rather than style. I realize that it's difficult to do when the attacks coming at us are often vitriolic streams of bile, but there have always been (and continue to be) staggeringly vast reasons to criticize this president/administration on actions and policies without resorting to attacks on the man himself.

I'm interested to hear other comments/opinions.

(edited for some grammatical and style(!) changes)