Topic: What is it about W?
I've noticed that this man inspires hatred that might be beyond any political figure of this or possibly any preceding era. For example, there were around a few hundred protesters at the DNC and most of them were just anarchist groups or pro-life people. I'm watching CNN right now and i see a few hundred thousand marching against the war, Iraq prisoner scandal, some economic/social issue but none are as large as attacks against the man himself.
Posters calling Bush a thief or drun driver, drawings insinuating he is an intolerant, ignorant Christian redneck or just some poster calling him a liar or a warmonger. These people do disagree with Bush's policies, but they seem to hate him more than even most liberals do, hating Bush fundamentally as a human being.
I am unable to come to any conclusions about why George W. Bush inspires this much hatred on a personal and policy/political level. The hate has always been there yeah, but never this strong. Protesters have always marched with signs, but not this many. The numbers and the feelings really seem unprecedented. I can't remember ever hearing about even the hippies marching against LBJ as a person, other than "How many babies did you kill today, LBJ?" But that is more about the war than him, in my opinion.
Conservatives might say that liberal protesters are simply insane and want something to march about. But if this were true, why hasn't it happened only closer to now? Furthermore, why haven't liberals gone farther than simple protesting by and large, if they are mentally imbalanced and out for blood?
Others might say Bush's policies are controversial and that he has created division in the public at a historically unprecedented level. This is true, but it doesn't quite explain the personal attacks very well. I think it is something deeper than that.
The best answer I can come up with is that something about Bush personally really gets under his opponents skins. Perhaps it is his conceived basic lack of intellect, his over-confidence, his appearance, being overly forceful, the lies or just maybe how he he got into the White House to begin with. That would perhaps explain the passion and the personal assaults better, but it still leaves completely unexplained how the pure hatred is spawned and why they choose to react that way specifically.
Oh well, just a sort of boring talking point before the convention gets underway.