Some Thoughts on Bush Hatred

A thoughtful piece in today's online Opinion Journal by self-described "progressive" Peter Berkowitz, who, without intending to, found himself suddenly enveloped in Bush Hatred, having made an incautious remark to "progressive" colleagues who instantly went into pit-bull mode in defense of the Party Line. Which is, "it is not irrational (and therefore, apparently, eminently logical) to hate George W. Bush." Berkowitz had the gall to question this orthodoxy, in a quizzical, academic way, and soon found himself in the center of an ongoing firestorm of criticism:

Both a professor of political theory and a nationally syndicated columnist insisted that I was wrong to condemn hatred as a passion that impaired political judgment. On the contrary, they argued, Bush hatred was fully warranted considering his theft of the 2000 election in Florida with the aid of the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore; his politicization of national security by making the invasion of Iraq an issue in the 2002 midterm elections; and his shredding of the Constitution to authorize the torture of enemy combatants.

For which Berkowitz has the following highly unorthodox answer—unorthodox, at least, on the dogmatic left side of the aisle:

Of course, these very examples illustrate nothing so much as the damage hatred inflicts on the intellect. Many of my colleagues at Princeton that evening seemed not to have considered that in 2000 it was Al Gore who shifted the election controversy to the courts by filing a lawsuit challenging decisions made by local Florida county election supervisors. Nor did many of my Princeton dinner companions take into account that between the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, 10 of 16 higher court judges--five of whom were Democratic appointees--found equal protection flaws with the recount scheme ordered by the intermediate Florida court. And they did not appear to have pondered Judge Richard Posner's sensible observation, much less themselves sensibly observe, that while indeed it was strange to have the U.S. Supreme Court decide a presidential election, it would have been even stranger for the election to have been decided by the Florida Supreme Court.

Read the rest by following the link above. We don't buy the whole thing, but it indicates that at least some people on the left have the instinct to resist total brain death.