Conversations with my mom.. part 1

When I paraphrased Bush's recent misquote: "The enemy are always looking for ways to hurt our country ...and so are we..." She laughed and said, "Oh what a sweety."

I understand. He is handsome and likable. His "Bushisms" denote a human frailty that we can all relate with. After all, he's the one who braught back Carter's down home bar b q feeling back to the Whitehouse. He seems like and in many ways probably is just a "regular guy." Perhaps if he were actually running the executive branch instead of Cheney and Rumsfeld, the country would be better off.

But she did say one thing that made me think --"I don't like the democrats because all they do is hate..."

I mean clearly she didn't like democrats at least since Carter --and when did he ever hate anybody? So that can't be the reason. Still, it reminded me of why I'm registering as a Democrat this year.

I'm talking about the bitter mud-slinging partisan hatred bordering on hystaria and constant political attacks that happened during the 90s. The democrats this year don't know the meaning of hatred compared to the venom that republicans had toward Bill and Hilary Clinton. That's all they did.

I hear it on Rush and Medved all the time --how these bitter democrats are so busy attacking the president, but have they completely forgotten the 90s?

The difference is the Republicans were spewing hatred at a time when the Economy was strong, our Foreign ties were strong, we had just thwarted 15 Al quaeda attacks, our fifth amendment rights were intact and we had just succesfully ousted a dictator in the middle of a genocide.

You remember Molslovic right? Had people sniping four-year-olds out of their mother's arms on the streets, had running forced labor/starvation camps. And you wanna talk rape-rooms? These guys had rape-tents. Apparently they delivered. But I remember the radio right talking about having no business there and so on. And I remember the "Liberal Media" covering nothing but the Monica Lewenski scandal for like a year.

I would listen to these right-wingers talk about the world ending because the Clintons were so terrible and then walk outside to a country where gang violence was down to nothing compared to the Reagan/Bush years, there was a balanced budget and more people had jobs than ever before. It was a little confusing.


Here's an editorial by Paul Krugman citing examples of the republican hate going on right now:

Feel the Hate
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: September 3, 2004

"I don't know where George Soros gets his money," one man said. "I don't know where - if it comes from overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from." George Soros, another declared, "wants to spend $75 million defeating George W. Bush because Soros wants to legalize heroin." After all, a third said, Mr. Soros "is a self-admitted atheist; he was a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust."

They aren't LaRouchies - they're Republicans.

The suggestion that Mr. Soros, who has spent billions promoting democracy around the world, is in the pay of drug cartels came from Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, whom the Constitution puts two heartbeats from the presidency. After standing by his remarks for several days, Mr. Hastert finally claimed that he was talking about how Mr. Soros spends his money, not where he gets it.

The claim that Mr. Soros's political spending is driven by his desire to legalize heroin came from Newt Gingrich. And the bit about the Holocaust came from Tony Blankley, editorial page editor of The Washington Times, which has become the administration's de facto house organ.

For many months we've been warned by tut-tutting commentators about the evils of irrational "Bush hatred." Pundits eagerly scanned the Democratic convention for the disease; some invented examples when they failed to find it. Then they waited eagerly for outrageous behavior by demonstrators in New York, only to be disappointed again.

There was plenty of hatred in Manhattan, but it was inside, not outside, Madison Square Garden.

Barack Obama, who gave the Democratic keynote address, delivered a message of uplift and hope. Zell Miller, who gave the Republican keynote, declared that political opposition is treason: "Now, at the same time young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief." And the crowd roared its approval.

Why are the Republicans so angry? One reason is that they have nothing positive to run on (during the first three days, Mr. Bush was mentioned far less often than John Kerry).

The promised economic boom hasn't materialized, Iraq is a bloody quagmire, and Osama bin Laden has gone from "dead or alive" to he-who-must-not-be-named.

Another reason, I'm sure, is a guilty conscience. At some level the people at that convention know that their designated hero is a man who never in his life took a risk or made a sacrifice for his country, and that they are impugning the patriotism of men who have.

That's why Band-Aids with Purple Hearts on them, mocking Mr. Kerry's war wounds and medals, have been such a hit with conventioneers, and why senior politicians are attracted to wild conspiracy theories about Mr. Soros.

It's also why Mr. Hastert, who knows how little the Bush administration has done to protect New York and help it rebuild, has accused the city of an "unseemly scramble" for cash after 9/11. Nothing makes you hate people as much as knowing in your heart that you are in the wrong and they are in the right.

But the vitriol also reflects the fact that many of the people at that convention, for all their flag-waving, hate America. They want a controlled, monolithic society; they fear and loathe our nation's freedom, diversity and complexity.

The convention opened with an invocation by Sheri Dew, a Mormon publisher and activist. Early rumors were that the invocation would be given by Jerry Falwell, who suggested just after 9/11 that the attack was God's punishment for the activities of the A.C.L.U. and People for the American Way, among others. But Ms. Dew is no more moderate: earlier this year she likened opposition to gay marriage to opposition to Hitler.

The party made sure to put social moderates like Rudy Giuliani in front of the cameras. But in private events, the story was different. For example, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas told Republicans that we are in a "culture war" and urged a reduction in the separation of church and state.

Mr. Bush, it's now clear, intends to run a campaign based on fear. And for me, at least, it's working: thinking about what these people will do if they solidify their grip on power makes me very, very afraid.