The psychopathology of Bush hatred

American Thinker ^ | December 26, 2008 | James Lewis

[x]

While it is natural enough for conservatives to be upset by the blatant unfairness of the propaganda media --- indeed, by their visible madness --- if we just take a little mental distance, we can easily see an ancient anthropological drama: The crucifixion of the reigning king, along with the messianic glorification of a new one, who will surely rescue us from our media-driven despair.

Christopher Booker's The Neophiliacs: A Study of the Revolution in English Life In The Fifties and Sixties was a very good examination of this phenomenon.

I don't the feeling that there is enough Bush to love or hate -- that he's substantial, that there's as much there to get worked up over. Maybe there was once, but now he's more of a ghost or an irrelevance than anything else. That very smallness or absence or irrelevance may be one thing that angers people, even those who agree with him about some important issues.

[Louis Foxwell]

Your clarification is helpful and erudite. A reliance upon traditional liberalism is, however, misleading in the modern era. Classical liberalism is not vested in the modern Democrat party. The great liberal traditions of 19th century are most closely enunciated today by conservative ideology.

Today's so-called liberals are actually much more closely aligned with the Utopian socialism you describe. A majority of Americans support just this kind of state-ism.

Obama is clearly in the Utopian socialist tradition. He is not a Constitutionalist and is not by any stretch a classical liberal. As for his temperament there are conflicting reports. Suffice it to say his mettle will be tested.

I have no reason to believe that our Constitution is sacrosanct. It has been profoundly subverted for more than 100 years and is, to my thinking, perilously threatened by the very populism you describe as seminal to the rise of tyrants in the 20th century.

Chinese peasants are little differentiated from the mass populas of our great urban centers. The threat of riot by millions has quenched any serious investigation of the character or qualifications of the O. Parallels are striking.

[mitch5501]

"For the last eight years we have witnessed the most distasteful media coverage, coupled with internet insanity take shot after shot against a man who is a decent, gentle soul."

Spot on!

Here in Oz we are assaulted on a daily basis by media hacks gibbering their irrational hatred for Bush and giggling like squealing schoolgirls over anything to do with Obama.

The media's disgusting treatment of Bush makes me sick to my stomach as these asshats corrode what's left of any respect for the office.

Much of the crap spewed at Bush sounds awefully similar to the poison fed to Palistinian kids about Jews being pigs and monkeys...and 'sheeple' gobble it up and spit it out like it's gospel truth.

No doubt W has his faults but just how well could anyone do with both hands tied behind their back and leftist idiots screaming 24/7 in each ear?

I fear for America and I fear for the west and I'm thankfull to God that I know where this is headed.

[andy58-in-nh]

I mentioned both classical and "modern" liberalism in a single breath in order to differentiate between them, as they are almost polar opposites.

I agree with you about our Constitution being threatened but I would not underestimate the will of those ready to come to its defense should push come to shove. The "masses" may love their unearned benefits but we love our freedom more.

I don't honestly know what the hell we've got in Obama. If he were of the classic dictator type I'd be more worried about his intentions. He's not stupid, which is a plus, but he's clearly in over his head, which is to say that in this day and age, articulation is valued over wisdom. I'm more concerned about the really evil bastards who have ridden his coattails and/or funded his victory.

The bottom line is that I want this country to succeed and to the degree that Obama pisses off his leftist supporters and steers a more careful path, I would be cautiously optimistic. The one hope I have for him (and it's tenuous, I admit) is that he is still young and impressionable enough to change his mind when confronted with challenges whose resolution depends upon a choice between what is right for the nation and what is politically expedient.

If by some miracle, he were to truly decide to be President of all the people, we might be able to get through this period without untold damage. Stranger things have happened. The Presidency changes people, perhaps because of an awesome awareness of responsibility that dawns on its occupants, or alternatively, because they quickly come to realize their limitations as executives and as human beings to affect matters beyond their control.

[ffusco]

The resigned Bush of 2008 is not the same man we elected in 2000. Remember the swagger? The strike he threw on oppenning day? Carrying the book “Bias” after exiting AF1? Remember the Bush of “Mission Accomplished” in the flight suit?

Then came the compromising Bush: “The No child left behind” advocate. The champion of classless Ted Kennedy’s Education Bill. The $100 billion to fight AIDS in Africa. The biggest entitlement prograam in 40 years - the Medicare RX plan. I suspect he thought this would make him popular with Democrats- but they gave him nothing in return. His myopia was limited to keeping us safe here at home, but no border fence, no changes to immigration policy and no massive deportation of illegals.

Bush lost the opportunity in the first 6 years of his administration to set the country on the right track and squandered the opportunity. His energy plan included more nuclear, clean coal and offshore drilling should have been passed by congress in 2001. Bush also failed to correct problems he inherited from #42 and was criticized for Kyoto, SALT, Arsenic levels in our water.

Utlimately Bush failed to engage the public in a meaningful way, misused the bully pulpit and left the media and Hollywood define the narrative.

[hinckley buzzard]

The reference to the Oedipal scenario is misleading and inapt. The proper complex if one wishes to wax psychoanalytic is the trauma complex, being developed by Freud at the time of his death. It reflects the intrapsychic conflict between the libidinal and aggressive drives. The attempt to resolve this conflict through a compromise is doomed to failure and in the political domain leads to liberalism as a pathological outcome.

That is, the liberals impute to themselves only the highest motives, in a futile attempt to deny their own aggression, which they devalue and would shun. But the aggressive drive is no respector of libidinal objects and is characterized by a peremptory quality which overrides superego constraints.

Because he has suppressed awareness of his aggressive intentions, the liberal under threat is unable to manage or moderate his aggression as normal persons can, but rather sinks to the deepest hog-wallows of hostility and hate.

This embroiled narcissism is a remnant of the most infantile of dynamics, and the least susceptible to the influence of maturation.

George Bush is a target because simply put his integrity generates a narcissistic threat to the liberal's sense of superiority. All liberals instinctively know that whether he could parse a sentence or not, and his obvious blunders notwithstanding, he is still ten times the man they will ever be. This incites infantile narcissistic rage at the hypothalamic level of the ancient reptilian brain.

The fascinating truth of this can be seen in the almost eerie replay, the liberals' reaction to Sarah Palin. Their hatred of her is radioactive and exceeds even the Bush derangement syndrome.

As with Bush, she threatens every liberal by being integrated and fulfilled, and unforgivably, a woman to boot. She is the living ideal of all that feminism pretends to seek; thus her very existence exposes the leftist lie behind the women's "movement," as it evolved into the malignant force it came to be, and discredits the entire feminist project.

[neverdem]

Happy New Year!

[txgirl4Bush]

I absolutely love President Bush. And I know alot of other people that do too. The thought of him not being in the Whitehouse is very depressing for alot of us. I will miss seeing his pictures in the “Day in the Life of Pres Bush” section of FR. The left hates him because he is a good decent and moral Christian man. I admire him and will miss him so much.

[sickoflibs]

LOL. Is he still here???

[sickoflibs]

GWB pity party-circle the wagons ping

[AndyJackson]

The left hates him because he is a good decent and moral Christian man.

A moral man does not cause large numbers of folks to die unncessarily in a grotesquely mismanaged war. The entire Bush mythology falls apart once you look at the 3rd raters he has relied upon to execute his policies. Harriet Miers and that FEMA idiot are more or less par for Bush appointees with Roberts, Alito and Gates being the very clear exceptions. Read "Angler" about how Cheney ran a selection process to ensure 3rd ratership among political appointees.

A moral man does not take $700B from the American people and give it to a few cronies on wall street.

[Moonman62]

W doesn’t have any cronies on Wall Street. He’s always hated Wall Street and that’s one of the reasons he’s achieved such poor economic results.

[txgirl4Bush]

It matters not what you say about Bush, it wont change my mind. You can post as much hatefilled comments here as you want to. I know that no President is purfect. I dont blindly agree with EVERYTHING Bush does. But overall I admire him and I always will.

[beckett]

The conservative question is always, "What is the realistic alternative?"

I'm not a Bush hater, but I don't respect him as a leader either, and it's precisely because there was a "realistic alternative" to the invasion of Iraq. What he needed to do was wait for events to develop, the quintessential conservative stance. Saddam very well may have blundered his was into provoking nearly the whole world into supporting action against him if Bush had waited a year or two. There was no rush, no emergency. Bush knew the WMD thing was mainly BS, as Paul Wolfowitz admitted years ago, but which many Bush supporters now conveniently forget.

Bush decided he had to act now because he thought he had to capitalize on 911 war fever. It was dissipating by 2003, but hadn't yet disappeared.

George Bush took us to war because he hated Saddam, and he mistakenly believed his family's hatred and the national interests of the United States of American were one and the same. It was a great, tragic mistake, and history will not forgive him for it.

[Kickass Conservative]

Obamunism, the fatal cure for Bush Derangement Syndrome.

R.I.P. / U.S.A.

[Impy]

His popularity dipped after his reelection.

Anyway, I hate him for kneecapping the Republican party. Obama and the rat congress are the fault of him and his administration (along with RINOs in Congress). Such a waste of on opportunity. He’s the RINO Emperor. Spend spend spend spend. Illegal immigrant? Welcome aboard!

[dragnet2]

I see you being accused as a "hater". This is like reading from some twisted liberal site, masquerading as conservative. Ya hear these hate accusations from many leftist all the time. Ya see if you disagree, or dislike something, you are a, "hater". lol...

Bush didn't have a conservative bone in his body, and after 8 years in office, he leaves much of this country a smoking wreck.

[vietvet67]

Happy New Year. Should be an interesting one.

[AndyJackson]

he of all people is not craftily articulate

I don't care that he isn't articulate. I care that he has filled his administration with 3rd raters who have done a epithet deleted poor job of executing key policies that are important to the welfare of the United States.

[AndyJackson]

That very smallness or absence or irrelevance may be one thing that angers people, even those who agree with him about some important issues.

Bingo. Whether or not getting involved in Iraq was the right thing to do is one of those grand historical questions that will be debated centuries hence. While I don't agree with the decision, in hindsight, that is not my criticism of the man. My criticism is the mangled execution by 3rd raters - largely screened by Cheney BTW - because they were politically reliable - rather than having the war and the reconstruction run by first rate professionals is an example of his smallness and absence. Executive execution is about a lot more than making the big decision and leaving everything else to your minions however unfit for their roles they probably are.

Execution of everything in his administration has been mangled by 3rd rate minions. And this from the party that was supposed to know how to run things.