Welcome to the real world. I didn’t realize that a govt. job was supposed to be immune from pay-cuts.
Richard Melon-Scafe and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy™ may be crazy, but even they don’t turn on their own.
Yet. 
Two things…
You used the word “irrational”, not me. Medved might have, but I don’t recall it at all. So remove that from the argument.
I wasn’t trying to * refute * him, which is why I said in the first paragraph that I * accepted * the basic premise as a fact, even though I think it’s difficult to measure.
What I was arguing, and of course not everyone would agree with me, was that if the premise is true, there is a very good reason for it to be true.
Recall that * my * point was values…You hate Joe, I hate Jane. You hate Joe because you think he’s slimy and slick and he beat your guy and he sleeps around on his wife and he might have done a whole bunch of other stuff, maybe, even though you can’t prove it to save your life. I hate Jane because she’s shamed my nation and caused what I believe to be wholly unnecessary deaths of my fellow Americans, (along with many other destructive things).
I don’t consider these things equivalent. That would be MY point.
So basically the mention of Medved is irrelevant, and all you want to argue is why Bush is a worse president than Clinton was?
Why isn’t this simply called “justifiable exasperation”?
As at least one participant in this thread has pointed out, one can loathe a previous president without having to support the present one.
I would point out that since the current President is enjoying an especially free ride due to the “war climate” (upon which I personally think his Administration is attempting to foment and capitalize) and the expiration of the special prosecutor laws.
If there were an extant and effective special prosecutor law, that prosecutor would have been appointed in 2002–perhaps earlier–to investigate the suspiciously mining-friendly actions of Deputy Secretary of the Interior J. Stephen Griles.
And, had the last pattern of investigation been repeated, the President himself would now be examined for at least two impeachable offenses, lying to Congress and manipulating an intelligence agency. There is already testimony on the Senate record to support that second one. And then of course there is this week’s scandal, which already points in the direction of outright treason–and l’eminance grise of the Bush Adminitration, Karl Rove, has been named.
Some non-partisan people have to be saying to themselves, “why does this guy get a pass when we came this close to nailing the Executive Branch down to a new standard of honesty just four years ago?”
I would suggest that it isn’t only pro-Clinton/anti-Bush people who are creating the simmer of dissent. I suspect that the “hatred” for Bush comes from all sectors of the populace which place honesty, honor, and accountability above partisan politics. And with that in mind, Medved may actually be correct, because there is more to be indignant about, with much larger ramifications, and less being done about it since the days of the Teapot Dome.
And unlike Clinton’s transgressions, which managed to damage a dress, Bush’s actions are affecting families in every state in the nation. Why shouldn’t those people be pissed?
**bri1600bv
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[Moderator Hat ON]
bri1600bv, you can critique a poster’s arguments, logic or posts, but you cannot personally insult them in this forum.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
Just to underscore what I’m saying, I give you the two most recent editorials by the founder of Capitol Hill Blue, Doug Thompson, who decidedly is a Clinton-burner and in my experience is generally right-leaning:
While I agree with Stoid, it’s really not worth the effort to attempt to refresh his memory on the savagery of the vast right wing conspiracy. It’s going to be in one ear and out the other with that guy. Such efforts are better directed towards the voting public at large.
Medved is like Ned Flanders. That is, if Ned Flanders had the same job as The Critic, and tried to present himself as having the wisdom and nobility of Kermit the Frog, but in reality blending the busybody morality of Peggy Hill with the yes-man bootlicking of a Dr. Zoidberg.
What of this notion? Clinton haters were mobilized and motivated from above by daily “talking points” that oozed via Imus, Limbaugh etc.; Bush haters are mobilizing and motivating themselves because they are finally getting it in their heads that the so-called “culture war” is actually a fight to the death and the opposition is better organized.
Interestingly enough, New York Times columnist David Brooks almost this very subject in his column today (free registration required).
I took the liberty of graphing the numbers you posted and it appears that the pre-Bush decline of which you speak so triumphantly took place for the most part in the period between the election and the inauguration on Jan 2001. In fact, Nov 2000 has the single largest drop of any other single period.
Based solely on these numbers, I’d conclude that it wasn’t Clinton’s failings but the looming spectre of Bush that caused the decline.
Gosh, the hatred you people have for your Presidents is just… well, I’m tempted to say “awe-inspiring” but that doesn’t quite fit the bill.
Be like us, in favour of “Law and good government” instead of “Law and good God my government is eeeevil!”
You can get away with that only because your country doesn’t have a sizable voting bloc that corresponds to our “Religious Right.”
These are the folks who turned a milquetoast semi-conservative moderate like Bill Clinton into a fire-breathing daemon, which gave them eight years of “my government is eeeevil!” chest-beating. Then they rally behind George W. Bush, who ends up scaring even the moderate conservatives with his policies – and we’re all screaming “my government is eeeevil!” as a result. 
Look, sport, I posted a table of numbers and pointed out the maximum, the minimum, and the values on two particular dates. Any “triumph” you read into what I posted is entirely in your head.
And secession.
At least we got over secession 138 years ago.
Well, most of us got over it.
NY Times readers rebut Brooks, pointing out that hatred of the Bush administration is over his policies, not his person.
rjung:
May I introduce you to the newly-remodeled Drudge
Whore or convert? You make the call.
Maybe he’s like me and just anti-incumbent?
Instead of there not being a conspiracy, there is a conspiracy but it doesn’t stand up for the people on whose behalf it conspires. Occum is rolling in his grave.
Brooks’ column also willfully ignores much of Chait’s TNR piece to hold it up as just more irrational hatred on the left.
Regarding the OP, I wouldn’t get too worked up about what Medved says. He’s just parroting the line recently put forth by a number of conservative commentators like the aforementioned Brooks and Charles Krauthhamer and other right-wing radio ranters that George W. Bush is such a great and beloved figure that any opposition to his policies must be entirely based on blind, irrational, and personal hatred for the man. Thus, there’s no need to address any criticism of, say, Bush’s rationale for invading Iraq because it is likely just the spiteful opinion of some chronic malcontents on the left.
As for me, I don’t personally hate Bush. However, I certainly do have a distaste for his policies and the excessive devotion of his supporters.
Regarding the OP, I wouldn’t get too worked up about what Medved says. He’s just parroting the line recently put forth by a number of conservative commentators like the aforementioned Brooks and Charles Krauthhamer and other right-wing radio ranters that George W. Bush is such a great and beloved figure that any opposition to his policies must be entirely based on blind, irrational, and personal hatred for the man. Thus, there’s no need to address any criticism of, say, Bush’s rationale for invading Iraq because it is likely just the spiteful opinion of some chronic malcontents on the left.
As for me, I don’t personally hate Bush. However, I certainly do have a distaste for his policies and the excessive devotion of his supporters.