Dislike for Bush vs Clinton

Great Debates
1

Initial disclaimer - I am a longtime Democrat, and consider myself at the far liberal end of most social issues. Also, I very much dislike our current president. I’m not sure I would really care too much for him personally one way or another, but I truly despise certain many of his policies. I would probably not dislike him as much as I do if it were not for the Iraq war which I consider unnecessary and inexcusable.

On these boards and in the media, I often see reference to Bush-haters, suggesting that there are a number of people who somewhat irrationally oppose everything Bush does, for I’m not sure what reason.

When Clinton was in office, I didn’t love the guy and I certainly saw him as having faults, but pragmatically I personally considered him better than a more conservative alternative. It seemed as tho there was a sizeable number of conservatives who strongly hated Clinton, and would go to just about any lengths to discredit him or impede anything he tried.

Essentially my question is how you would compare the dislike for Bush, compared to the dislike for Clinton? I’m not asking which was better or worse, because I suppose that many if not most folk will prefer the member of the party they more closely identify with. But do/did more people dislike Bush or Clinton? How do the bases for their dislike, and the intensity of their dislike compare?

Apologies if this has been done before and my inept searching failed to find it, or if this fits better in IMHO.

2

http://www.highbeam.com/library/docFree.asp?DOCID=1G1:109025095

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/000682.html

http://www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/Approval.htm

Dis/approval & un/popularity of Clinton seems to have been in the low-average zone. That of GW Bush is much more spectacularly in the toilet.

Some of the people who hated Clinton did so with great intensity but it was not as widely shared as the negative opinions of Bush.

3

The right’s hatred of Clinton simply has less basis in reality. The accusations against Bush are more likely to be true; he really did start a war under false pretenses, while there was never any evidence Clinton killed Vince Foster. Clinton was not far left; he was more moderate right. Bush is far right.The Clinton haters had black helicopter conspiracy theories; the Bush haters have real people being kidnapped and dragged to real torture chambers. Bush really is a monster; Clinton was not.

4

I see little difference in the intensity or truthfulness of the two sides. There are plenty of left-wingers willing to accuse Dubya of plotting cold-blooded murders too. The difference is media coverage; those left-wingers don’t get invited to share their accusations on cable news, nationwide radio shows, and mainstream newspapers, while their right-wing analogues did.

5

Some Bush haters also have black helicopter conspiracy theories.

This statement illustrates the irrational POV of some extreme anti-Bush folks. Bush is not a “monster”. He’s a crummy President at a time when we badly needed at least a half-decent one.

To answer the OP - the intensity of the dislike for both Clinton and Bush is comparable if you look at the extreme end of the spectrum. Closer to normality, the disdain for Bush seems far greater than the animus for Clinton ever was, with good reason.

6

He’s pro-torture, and is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents. Monster.

7

I think that there was more irrational hatred for Clinton than for Bush (Vince Foster, Mena, Arkansas, etc.) and that the media was much more amenable to wallowing in any and every allegation that could be concocted against him. While there is some similar irrational hostility and paranoia about Bush (“he was behind 9/11,” for instance), it doesn’t get the same kind of media play and hasn’t spilled into the mainstream as much.

I think the rational dislike of Bush is more widespread, but I also think there are good reasons for it.

None of this is meant to imply that there couldn’t be rational distaste for Bill Clinton, I’m just saying the wacko element was higher when Clinton was Prez and was more visible in the media.

8

I think most of the hatred for Bill was for his personal lifestyle and sexual indiscretions.

Most of the hatred for George is for his policies.

9

And I think most of the hatred for Bill was because he lied so much, and about so many things, and seemed to get away with it. Which explains why he was impeached - he lied under oath*, so he was impeached because they had him dead to rights, whereas they couldn’t do that for all the other times. Didn’t pan out, obviously, any more than an impeachment of Bush would succeed.

But Jackmanii is right - the hatred of both is more concentrated on the extremes of the spectrum - the lunatic Left hates Bush with much the same passion as the lunatic Right hated Clinton (and hates Hilary). And with the same unfounded zeal - the Right accused Clinton of killing Foster (with no evidence), the Left accuses Bush of stealing the election (with an equal lack).

Regards,
Shodan

*Yes he did. I am tired of providing cites over and over, so don’t bother asking.

10

And this years SDMB Award for Unintended Irony goes to…the envelope please?

11

I agree. When you get right down to “Things Done While In Office,” Clinton managed to get a large number of traditionally Republican issues passed and dealt with. He just lacked the personal gravitas the Republicans expected in a President.

Damn! My irony meter just broke.

12

This approaches articulating what I also felt.
It seemed Repubs really disliked Clinton (and Hillary) as people. And I’m not going to say they didn’t have reason to. I was extremely disappointed that his indiscretions and character flaws preventedd him from getting as much done as he otherwise might have.

I think many Dems don’t dislike Bush as intensely - or at least didn’t before this war. They don’t respect him, and many almost feel sorry for him as appearing over his head, but I sense less animosity directed at him personally, and more at specific policies.

13

There’s nothing necessarily irrational about hating all of Bush’s policies and actions as president. I think when people talk about “irrational Bush haters,” it’s referring to those whose hate reaction is a pure knee jerk. I don’t doubt that if tomorrow Bush announced that he had changed his mind on stem cells and abortion, there are Bush haters who would switch their positions too, because for them it’s not about the actual issues, it’s about “anything Bush does is wrong, no matter what it is.”

14

Republican and Christian here. My initial reaction to Bill Clinton when I first noticed him at the Democratic National Convention in 1988, I guess it was, when he gave the endless speech, was one of distaste. Visceral, not rational, and not hatred by any means. When he ran in 1992, the feeling was still there, but he seemed like a reasonable candidate, better to me policy-wise than many Dems. I voted for Perot that year, helping Clinton win. While Clinton was president, I was pretty happy with his policy accomplishments. I didn’t much like looking at him or listening to him, but he did a pretty good job.

His dalliance with the intern disturbed me greatly. There’s a story told about Ross Perot that sums up my feeling about this. The story says that Perot had a policy at his company that executives could be fired for marital infidelity. Asked why, Perot is reputed to have said “If his wife can’t trust him, why should I?” I don’t expect anyone else to live by my moral code, but I wouldn’t trust a person who would cheat on his or her spouse with anything. That said, I didn’t hate him or want him impeached.

When GWB came to my attention as a possible presidential candidate, in a profile in The National Review, I had similar feelings of distaste, for different reasons. I’ve worked with the type of guy who has nicknames for everyone, who treats work situations like we’re all on a sports team together, and I don’t like that much. I guess in looking back on the way I felt about these guys, it would be fair to say that I just don’t like politicians much. Anyway, I voted for him, twice. The first time because I believed he would govern according to conservative principles, the second because I thought he was going to clean up the mess he created in Iraq in a way that could stabilize the region a little. :smack: Neither expectation has been met.

It’s hard, at this point, to remember the level of dislike for GWB before his policies, actions, and the consequences thereof angered so many people. I think the numbers of people who hated GWB and Clinton were similar at the outset of their presidencies, and the intensity, as far as I can tell was similar as well. Bush now has a whole lot more people far angrier than Clinton ever did, and for more substantial reasons.

15

Bill Clinton’s two big sins were that he was (a) successful and (b) a Democrat. Remove either one of those factors and most anti-Clinton Republicans wouldn’t have given a gnat’s fart about the guy.

16

Bingo.

Let’s see… the lie to your face sexual predator or the dumbass bafoon? The lie to your face sexual predator or the dumbass bafoon?

17

Preview, dangit. Err… make that “buffoon”.

18

Interesting… I hated Clinton for his policies long before I paid any attention to his sexual harassment of subordinates. Seriously, his condescending attitude and disdain for the Bill of Rights pissed me off way back in '93, long before the cigar and blue dress

Never did like Dubya, and his condescending attitude and disdain for the Bill of Rights pissed me off way back on '02

19

What* number * is plenty? I doubt there are that many lefties who would accuse Bush of directly planning specific murders (as some righties have proposed with Clinton vis-a-vis Foster and Ron Brown, for example). Mostly the “murders” some lefties would accuse Bush of are connected to deaths stemming from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think the Clinton accusers vs. the Bush accusers–at least on this topic-- are seperated by at least 100 units of rabid-nuttiness.

So I would disagree with, at least the apparent spirit of, your above qoute.

20

One other thing, although it could be described as a subset of item (a): Clinton defeated GHWB when he didn’t oughtta.

It’s not impossible that this is mere paranoia on my part, but it’s seemed to me for some time that the movers&shakers behind the Republican Party as currently constituted have been striving for hegemony (above and beyond the striving of any self-respecting political party). They had the perfect starting point in Ronald Reagan—a figure who, like him or not, appeared to be surrounded by an aura that drew the populace to him. He passed a good part of this to his successor, and I have a feeling that the plan was to pass it along the line: eight years of GHWB, then eight of Dan Quayle :eek:, then Dubya or Jeb, etc. No doubt the aura would have petered out eventually, but there would be plenty of time to establish the GOP as the Grand Only Party before it did.

But Clinton upset the applecart. No matter that Bush 41 squandered the aura by a series of boneheaded moves: the Democrat wasn’t supposed to win. As the old saying about Harvard and football has it, he was supposed to try hard, but lose in the end.

Or perhaps I’ve crossed over into dementia at last. But it did seem to me at the time that the reaction of a number of prominent Republicans was less that of politicians who had lost than that of petulant children who had had their toys taken away.