NYT: Learning To Love To Hate

[CShine]

Scrutiny of the New York Times best-seller list discloses a new and important trend: Bush-hating has eclipsed Clinton-, Democrat- and liberal-elite-hating. There's Bill O'Reilly, liberal-hater in chief at Fox News, at the No. 2 slot; but Michael Moore's ''Dude, Where's My Country?'' sits on top of the greasy pole, while Al Franken's ''Lies (and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them)'' occupies the No. 3 spot. Molly Ivins's ''Bushwhacked'' is farther down, as is David Corn's ''Lies of George W. Bush,'' a register of alleged mendacity so relentless that it puts one in mind of Mary McCarthy's famous gibe at Lillian Hellman: ''Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.' '' And Jonathan Chait, a centrist who backed the war in Iraq, has given new legitimacy to the genre with a recent Bush-hating confessional of his own in a cover article for The New Republic.

For those of us of hopelessly moderate temperament, dipping into the inky depths of these volumes offers something of the wicked and barely licit pleasures of a Victoria's Secret catalogue. I had forgotten, for example, until David Corn reminded me, that President Bush contemptuously dismissed his own E.P.A.'s 268-page study admitting that global warming posed a grave threat to this country by saying, ''I read the report put out by the bureaucracy.'' Hatred is delicious. But the sudden rash of jeremiads and their stunning popularity raises a question: Why are so many liberals, including sane and sober ones, granting themselves permission to hate the president? And this in turn is related to a political question: How is it that Howard Dean has built a (so far) wildly successful campaign for the Democratic nomination for president on ressentiment?

There are obvious ideological answers to this question. The liberal answer is that George Bush is a craven, lazy, hypocritical nitwit. The conservative answer is that liberals are being driven crazy by the fact that Bush is so popular with Americans, and thus by the realization that anyone to the left of center is utterly marginal. And then there is the generalized, nonpartisan lament that the public arena has become so vulgarized and polarized and Jerry Springerized that everyone is now at everyone else's throat. O tempora! O mores!

The problem with this last view is precisely that it's nonpartisan. Our political culture has not been infected by some virus from outer space, or from TV. The carrier was Newt Gingrich. Now, I know perfectly well that Democrats like Teddy Kennedy did a fair job of dehumanizing Robert Bork in his 1987 Supreme Court hearings. But Gingrich brought delegitimation to the core of G.O.P. strategy. It was Gingrich who destroyed House Speaker Jim Wright in 1989, and Gingrich who advised Republicans to always affix adjectives like ''pathetic,'' ''sick'' and ''corrupt'' when referring to Democrats. Gingrich solemnly told the nation, at the 1992 Republican National Convention, that the Democratic Party ''rejects the lessons of American history, despises the values of the American people and denies the basic goodness of the American nation.'' And along with Trent Lott, Tom DeLay and Dick Armey, Gingrich labored mightily to bring down President Clinton, first through Whitewater and then through the Starr report and the impeachment proceedings.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/magazine/26WWLN.html

[meg]

1. A better variation of "Liberals must not do what GOP does"

So don't critisize the pResident. Don't block judges. The GOP was bad, but you must just shut up and take it. That's polite.

I say, Bullsh*t!! We/re not falling for that cra*p anymore!!

[Skittles]

4. THANK YOU MEG

look at where offering them the vaseline has gotten the Democrats: we have allowed facists to take over America. It has got to stop. I not only despise our unelected piece of garbage "president", I will scream it from the rooftops.

[belle]

9. Really. The nice police in full effect. Oh, tsk, tsk, twitter twitter.

I have a suggestion for what that "hopelessly moderate" (half right, anyway) author can do with his inkpot, but I'm afraid it wouldn't be "nice," either.

[rogerashton]

2. That's just not true.

The carrier was Richard Nixon in the Helen Gahagan Douglas race.

http://www.ou.edu/special/albertctr/archives/exhibit/hgdbio.htm

Of course, the demise of the Soviet Union created a problem for simple red-baiting, so Gingrich had to find a slightly different rhetoric for illegitimating any opposition to the Republican party.

The Republican Party: 63 years of totalitarianism and counting.

[Skittles]

3. "ressentiment"

means resentment expressed indirectly, especially by belittling the values held by the hated individual.

I dislike having to look words up in the dictionary but I will if I have to!

[teryang]

5. Here's my morning rant

Legimate criticism of the BFEE now labeled as partisan excess-

This is the new "Hill & Knowlton- like" disaster response, psy war media strategy to overcome a completely natural and response to an emerging dictatorship predicated on endless war.

"Get bush" is a legitimate message because he is a threat to the Constitution. There is a tidal wave of resentment against the current junta at home and abroad. The most articulate and reasonable spokespersons against this unstable and dangerous regime are now being smeared as ideological "haters of bush."

Bush and the venal movement that supports him is the greatest threat to world peace since WW II. The world's great powers China and Russia are re-arming themselves against him in anticipation of his continued illegitimate and destabilizing rule. He is the most corrupt leader in American history but this goes naturally with dictatorship. The Straussian ideologues who promulgate this obscurantist neo fascist drivel are the new totalitarian party- vanguard of the mindless.

[pretzel4gore]

7. the so called nyt has blown its wad!

they are among the major actors in the bush cabal's crimes....and they can try to act as an 'objective' voice of cool reason all they want but they are bigtime pushermen of the big lie...and goddam them forver...

[Melsky]

6. I hate him because he is an arrogant threat to democracy

Him and his whole cabinet.

Interesting to see their spin on everyone hating a "popular" president. I think more and more people are just waking up.

[DrWeird]

8. "granting themselves permission to hate the president"

funny, I thought the constitution did that.

[Wang of Chung]

10. Why Rhetoric?

Why hate? Why scream? Simple: because it works. When conservatives complain about 'Bush-Hating,' or intolerance of differing opinions, do you really think they're serious? Of course not, such pleads to objectivity are simply another tool in their arsenal, one which flies out the window as soon as as their own 'hating' and subjectivity will give them the upper hand (Fox TV, Rush, anyone?).

This is the problem of being totally objective - you lose. People will flock to the most aggressive guy, they don't care about "Rationality," or "Honesty," why do you think teeth-whitening has a bigger effect on polls than massive lies about policies?

The problem with places like spinsanity.com, and others is that they seem to fail to realise that conservatives will simply raid their archives looking for dirt on liberals, meanwhile completely ignoring anything that is critical of their own behaviour. Meanwhile, liberals will actually listen to criticism and try to improve their behaviour.

This is the major trouble when trying to deal "fairly" with a group of people which has not one shred of a conscience, they will use every single opportunity you give them to twist your fairness to their own ends. Then, if that's not enough, they'll turn around and use the things you hold highly (fairness) against you (at least nominally) when you finally get angry enough to fight back (Hard Ball's "fairness" in inviting Democrats on the show recently).

In fact I don't believe I've ever seen a case where a conservative has accused the opposing party of something he isn't a 1000 times more guilty of in the first place. That's the way they work, you criticise them, they ignore all your accurate arguments and try to prove you are the one who is really guilty of such behaviour, god help you if there is even a tiny bit of truth in their position, then you have to take your time to correct you mis-conduct while they sit back, a festering tumour to your boil, and not even spare a second thought on their actions. Can you reason with people like that? I'd rather hit myself in the eye with a nail than behave like that, because I have a conscience, and that is why I'll lose.

We already put so much pressure on ourselves to be truthful and critical - hoops the Republican don't even know exist let alone try to jump through - why waste time on being nice? When you try to reason with a conservative, it's like trying to reason with your dog about sh*tting on the rug; he'll cock his head to the side because he doesn't have a f*cking clue what your talking about, then he'll turn around and do it again, because he does not know any better. What you do is smack him on the ass, so he knows not to do it, he may not know why it’s wrong, but at least he'll stop. This kind of pragmatic action is the ONLY thing that has even a tiny shred of a chance of working.

Democracy (especially large all encompassing ones like the US) is a festering pool of irrationality, and the only way to tame it is to push it around until it finally submits. So on one side your the winning bastard who stems the tide of fearful hatred (if only for awhile), and on the other side the losing saint (who watches the world go to hell but can be happy with his un swerving morality), a pretty sh*tty compromise anyway you look at it; the Bastard will probably become corrupt, and the Saint will lose all his rights, while those around him suffer.

Sorry for the long post, but this kind of thing gnaws at my brain like a rat; sometimes I envy conservatives in their simple ignorance.

[doubleplusgood]

11. rational hatred vs. irrational hatred

Hatred by itself is not necessarily a bad thing if motivated by RATIONAL thought. During WWII, people hated Hitler & fascism, needless to say, for good reasons and used this as a motivating force in defending democracy from a REAL threat.

I hate George Bush for his mis-begotten policies based on beliefs, not evidence, for his incuriousness, his gross ignorance of science and empirical methods, for starting a war based on lies to turn the tide rightward in a mid-term congressional election, for lying about Enron et al screwing California & wrecking that state's, and with it, the nation's economy.

Right-wingers, by contrast, hated Bill Clinton from even before the get-go, before he actually did anything as president.