The true reason why many liberals hate Bush is not because he cut taxes, or stumbles when he speaks, or even Bush v. Gore. I mean, people were upset about these things, but they didn't cause the sort of glowing hatred that I’ve seen over the past two years. In my opinion, and E.J. Dionne’s, the real reason that liberals hate Bush is that they feel he betrayed them. Betrayal is the root of Bush-hatred. After 9/11, the entire country (and world) supported Bush. I remember liking the guy in December 2001. All Americans – including many liberals/progressives – were deeply affected by 9/11, and we all gave Bush a great deal of political capital to deal with it. Patriotic pride returned. But most of all, there was a strong sense of unity and purpose across the political spectrum. It was a truly amazing time - I miss it.

But instead of using that capital for a national unifying purpose, Bush (following Rove-the-genius’s advice) decided to use that capital to punish Democrats. Democrats trusted him and he turned right around and used 9/11 against them, viciously. The fear and anger from 9/11 were used to rally support for a war that many opposed. But even worse, opponents of the war were ridiculed and called unpatriotic.

The 2002 midterm elections were the last straw - and a new low. Bush deliberately politicized the war on terror by scheduling a vote just prior to the election. Rove himself urged Republicans to “run on the war.” Veteran Max Cleland was compared to Osama. The arrogance was intolerable. Here was a President who lost the popular vote, but was given a national mandate to fight terror after 9/11. Within six months, Bush took that mandate and he used it to punish and betray anti-war progressives. He and his supporters ridiculed us. They scared people. They lied to people. They accused us of not caring about 9/11. They accused us of not learning the lessons of 9/11. And for what? To fight a war that his idiot cabinet had wanted to fight for a decade. For that, he sent kids off to die. I have never been more bitter and angry about politics in my entire life than I was in March and April of 2003. And a lot of other people felt the same way. AND MAKE NO MISTAKE - if Iraq were going well, he would be bludgeoning Democrats with it as we speak (just as he used Afghanistan and 9/11). That's why I will never feel sorry for him, and that's why I think that he is not "a good guy."

Progressives will never forgive Bush for the personal betrayal. It burns too deep.

While I will give him the possibility that Bush's egregious post-9/11 behavior may have been the catalyst that turned active Bush-dislike or Bush-dismay into Bush-hatred per se (which is still not anywhere near the kind of keep-seated, glassy-eyed, fire-in-the-belly hatred that the right-wing had -- has -- for Bill Clinton), the roots of it go right back to the moment when Bush popped out of obscurity to overnight become the candidate to beat, with the largest political warchest ever assembled in the U.S. Clearly, even though the guy was obviously unqualified, and even a little uninterested in the job, somebody wanted him to be president, and wanted it very badly, and that immediately raised liberal hackles.

From that moment on, nothing Bush did was anything but fodder for the distrust and dislike of liberals and progressives, culminating in the stealing of the election in Florida through the vehicle of bought-and-paid-for Supreme Court Justices. His policies once in office, the people he nominated to the cabinet (Ashcroft!), the tax-cuts designed for the rich, drilling in Alaska instead of a sane energy policy, withdrawal from Kyoto, withdrawal from the International Criminal Court, all the isolationist, unilateralist, exceptionalist posturing on foreign affairs -- what, exactly, did Bush not do to arouse our dislike of him and his crew?

His actions after the September 11th attacks, then, were the predictable extentions of everything he already had done before, and took hardly anyone I know by surprise. Certainly there was a moment, a moderately long inhalation in which we wanly hoped that he might suprise us and rise to the occasion, but when he didn't we didn't feel betrayed, I don't think, more we felt as if our previous judgment had been (quite unfortunately) confirmed.

When things got worse and worse, Bush-dislike grew steadily into something like Bush-hatred (for myself, manifested in a very bad case of Bush-avoidance: I literally cannot stand to watch or listen to him for more than a few seconds at a time, a syndrome quite a few of my friends share -- for that reason, I think "Bush disgust" is actually a more accurate description than Bush hatred), but not because we felt we had been betrayed. To be betrayed, you have to trust someone, and we never trusted the guy in the first place. Never.

Update: OK, in re-reading this paper by Jonathan Haidt on The Moral Emotions, perhaps "hatred" is a better description than "disgust." All I know is that I feel all three of the "Other-condemning emotions" when I look at, hear or think about Bush: Contempt, Anger and Disgust.

Update: Check out the comments thread on Legal Fiction for additional discussion.