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It's Okay To Hate Bush?
By Tim Siggia
March 21, 2003
The war is now on, and all across America people are putting politics aside to rally behind their troops and their president.
Well, not quite. This is true enough in Middle America, where the turnout for George W. Bush was strong in 2000. But on the coasts -- and, sad to say, here in Connecticut as well -- anti-war sentiment is being heard loud and clear. Well, after all, this is America, where citizens have the right to express dissenting views. But is all the anti-war fervor really anti-war? Or is it merely anti-Bush?
Hate is an evil thing, say our friends from the Left. Sure, free speech is one thing, but hate speech is something else. We even have laws against what are called "hate crimes". Never mind the fact that any crime, by its very definition, is prosecutable by the law. Hate crimes are a separate and distinct breed of lawbreaking, and need special statutes to distinguish them from all other transgressions. So say the Politically Correct.
Well, not quite. There are some things, it seems, it is politically okay to hate. Like the Second Amendment, for instance. Like Black and Hispanic judges with the wrong set of political convictions. Like anyone who opposes abortion on demand. Like any Republican not of the Arlen Specter/Lincoln Chaffee stripe.
Like our president.
Almost on a daily basis, condemnation of George W. Bush and everything he is and stands for spews out of our entertainment industry, unsolicited, and in a manner that brooks no rebuttal. From his home state of Texas, columnist Molly Bush-Should-Be-Boiled-In-Oil Ivins, who has been grinding the axe for Dubya ever since he unseated her idol, Ann Richards, as Texas governor, cranks out column after column, every one of which could easily carry the headline, "I Hate George W. Bush". And now we have crotchety Sen. Robert W. Byrd, whose name is borne by nearly every bridge, highway, library, school and office building in West Virginia, wailing that he's ashamed to be an American. (A sentiment shared by more than a few Americans with regard to you, Senator.)
But the protest is really about the war, you may hear. Oh really? Let's imagine a hypothetical scenario: the exact same one we have now, only instead of George W. Bush we have William Jefferson Clinton in the White House calling the shots. Where would all the protesters be then?
We don't have to stretch our imaginations too far for the answer, for it has actually happened, though not to the present degree. Remember Bosnia? Kosovo? Remember, in fact, a missile attack made on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, without seeking any approval from Congress, let alone the United Nations -- an attack which remarkably just happened to coincide with Clinton's impeachment hearings? Yes, Slick Willie could be quite the warmonger when it suited his purposes -- provided, of course, that he himself would be safe at home and not on the front lines.
And where were the protesters? Some were out carrying signs reading, "Give Bombs A Chance". Mostly, they were silent. And the news media? Their collective reaction in so many words was, as it always had been and still is now, "Clinton, Clinton, Rah-Rah-Rah, Clinton Can Do No Wrong!" But that was different, of course. Slobodan Milosovic was a barbarian who butchered his own people, and we had a moral (if indeed the words moral and Clinton can be used in the same sentence) duty to act against him. Never mind that Milosovic, for all his crimes, was not arming himself with offensive weapons for use against the United States. Never mind that Milosovic was not at the time even voicing any anti-American sentiment. Never mind that there were no vital American interests in the area (and no, I'm not just talking about oil). Milosovic was a monster, and he had to go -- never mind that Saddam Hussein is guilty of everything Milosovic was, plus.
The real difference, of course, was that we had a Democrat in the White House then. And that, to Hollywood, to the news media, to academia, and to every other bastion of leftist thought, made all the difference.
So the real protest is not about the war at all. It's about Bush. It's a referendum on a president, we still hear it whined, who was not elected by the people, but rather, selected by the Supreme Court. So the real message now is that while it's still wrong to hate just about everything else, it's okay to hate George W. Bush.
Never mind the fact that the American people in overwhelming numbers, as well as some 40 countries around the world, are strongly supporting his efforts.
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