“only the unpopularity of Bush and all he represented”
It’s a puzzlement. Bush did some things that angered me, but nothing he did justified the slavering malice that the leftards spewed at him.
Did they just decide to target him for personal destruction in revenge for the Stupid Party having tried to catch Beelzebubba in some of his major felonies?
Was it required to restore symmetry? That is, to prop up the lie that “everybody does it,” that the right is just as bad as the left? In the case of the Clintstones, that was very bad indeed, which would necessitate an extremely high volume of slander and hatred.
Or did they do it for the same reason a dog licks himself? Which is to say, because they could. Did they finally realize that, with the media, the courts, and academia in their pockets they could say absolutely anything, with no regard for truth—or even sanity—and get away with it?
I scratch my pointed head in perplexity. I wish I would come across a Thomas Sowell article illuminating this point.
You are exactly right - they did it because they could. They are still not over Bush winning in 2000. They drove Nixon from office. They tried to do the same to Bush/Cheney. Cheney in particular. The left is a bunch of childish haters who take everything personally. Their politics are their religion.
Recall that the Clinton administration, in violation of the law, denied the Bush transition team resources and access for six crucial weeks after the election. Their intention from the start was to cripple the government.
That got derailed by 9/11, to a degree. but then after Bush's re-election in 2004, the Soros wing decreed that they had "bought the (democrat) party and would be using it their way."(close paraphrase). Their way was to lauch a coordinated attack (think: JournoList) and hate campaign against Bush, with the deliberate intent of setting up the 2008 election.
They tipped their hand by featuring Obama at the 2004 convention. That's where the 2008 campaign began. They knew that 2008 would be open, with no incumbent running, and that if they could make enough people hate Bush, they could elect anyone they wanted, even a novice a**hole like Obama.
So yes, after many years of brainwashing, millions of Americans hated Bush more than they loved their country. Now that the hate machine has re-focussed on Sarah Palin, perceptions of Bush are coming back to normal.