Notes From D.R. | Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

So who hates President Bush the most now—the right or the left?

It would seem that the right has now outpaced the left in terms of anti-Bush contempt, as a result of Bush’s support for “comprehensive” immigration reform. However, it will take some time before conservatives can match progressives in disliking “Dubya.”

The right’s antagonism towards Bush is based solely on politics. Conservatives expected Bush to continue the effort Ronald Reagan started—the effort to establish fiscal, social, and national-security conservatism as the default position in Washington. Bush has repeatedly frustrated the right in this regard: while he’s hewed to the conservative line on tax cuts, judges, and the War on Terror, he’s broken faith with the right on such matters as education, Medicare and immigration. Add in controversies such as the Harriet Miers nomination and the Dubai Ports deal, and you have a recipe for conservative anger.

However, the left’s hatred for Bush is based more on personality than politics. Progressives have never been able to move beyond their view of Bush as a less-than-intelligent Bible-thumper born of privilege and indifferent to the needs of the “working man.” Just as the right regarded President Clinton as manifestly unqualified for the office, the left regards Bush as simply being inadequate for the job. Even if Bush won the 2000 election in a non-controversial fashion, the left would still despise him. Democrats may have denounced Reagan as a Bedtime for Bonzo President, but even the most fervent blue-stater had to give Reagan credit for his charisma and his rise from austere circumstances. Bush can never receive such credit, because he’s seen as “to the manor born.”

Bush’s actions have always been viewed by his political opponents through the lens of his perceived personality flaws. Iraq? The result of his supposed lack of intelligence. Katrina? The result of his alleged lack of compassion. Tax cuts? The result of his presumed disdain for the downtrodden.

Again, this is a mirror image of the way conservatives viewed Clinton—as a man whose questionable actions were the direct result of his personality flaws. Most progressives would be shocked if one pointed out that the left’s view of Bush is indistinguishable from the right’s view of Clinton. Yet, the evidence of such similarity is irrefutable.

Conservatives criticize Bush because they think he changed once in office, going back on his promises to the right and pursuing an ideologically inscrutable agenda. The left, however, feels that Bush is the same ineffective leader he was when he began his term—which is, of course, the exact same way the right thought of Clinton when he turned over the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to Bush in January 2001. The more things change, the more they stay the same.