Peter Berkowitz writes about Bush hatred, and so-called progressives stated pride in it:

Bush hatred is not a rational response to actual Bush perfidy. Rather, Bush hatred compels its progressive victims–who pride themselves on their sophistication and sensitivity to nuance–to reduce complicated events and multilayered issues to simple matters of good and evil. Like all hatred in politics, Bush hatred blinds to the other sides of the argument, and constrains the hater to see a monster instead of a political opponent.

Some people, based on posts like the previous one, have mindlessly called me a “Clinton hater.” Not just me, but anyone who points out that they are both corrupt liars. But there’s no passion in such a statement–it’s just a clinical factual description. If I state that Ted Bundy, or Charles Manson, or (for that matter) OJ Simpson are murderers, does it mean that I hate them? I don’t. I’m simply making a factual statement.

I’ve noted in the past that I’m often foolishly accused by people of being a Bush lover, simply because I’m not a Bush hater. And I’m also often accused of being a Clinton hater, simply because I (unlike, generally, the accusers) am not someone who loves him beyond all reason. From my perspective, I’m simply rationally evaluating both men based on the record. George W. Bush has many flaws, but doesn’t deserve the vituperation that is heaped on him. Bill Clinton isn’t evil, but he is a profoundly corrupt, narcissistic man.

I don’t hate the Clintons–I just don’t want them to regain political power. Of course, I’m just not that into hate, period, for the reasons that Berkowitz describes–it’s an emotion that clouds reason and judgment. I don’t even hate Osama bin Laden. I wish him dead, but not because I hate him. I simply, dispassionately think the world better off without him, and those like him.

But of course, the word “hate,” like “racist,” has lost most of its intellectual currency as a result of overuse and abuse by the left. So it’s all the more interesting that the same people take such pride in their admitted (and irrational) hatred of George Bush.