Ms Parrent wrote:
“a very important pillar of Obama’s campaign strategy is exploiting the irrational hatred of Hillary Clinton. This hatred was first brought to us by the Republicans…”
While some conservatives may have indulged in hatred of Hillary, many democrats and media figures have spent the last eight years in an accelerating tantrum of hatred for President Bush. The New Republic published an article by Chait boasting of his hatred for Bush back in 04, declaring that he hated the way he walked and the way he talked etc. And a formerly reputable house published a novel indulging in fantasies of assassinating Bush. In NYC where I live, comparisons of Bush to Hitler are absolutely unexceptional.
Having indulged themselves this way for years, clearly many democrats are no longer able to acknowledge political opponents: they can only have enemies. And they have learned to indulge in hatred for these so called enemies.
This is, after all, profoundly stupid. Anyone who knows the history of the 20th century should be aware that there are enemies in this world infinitely worse than any US politician, and that hating leaders who are honestly doing their best is a fools response to the exigencies of political life. Only a fool would think that Bush has anything whatever in common with Hitler. Such fools should hope that they never find themselves forced to realize how true this thought is by their own subsequent experience in life.
I didn’t like the Clinton presidency, with its uninspired improvisations on serious issues, its new leftish posturing to cover for its centrist policies, and i was ashamed (among other things) of their bombing from above the clouds policy in the war with Serbia, which counted Serb civilian casualties as irrelevant, but I knew they were not remotely in the league of Hitler, or Stalin, or Kim Jong Il, indeed not even of Castro or Mugabe.
The very real hatred for Hillary Ms Parrent regrets reflects the long term consequences of indulging in and sharing unjustified political hatred on a daily basis. There’s no emotional intelligence in the democratic net roots. They can only understand vicious hatred and swooning adulation for their current hero.
Maybe they should grow up, finally.
