i used to make fun of all the clinton haters in the right wing. you know the ones: they started sputttering & spitting & getting red in the face as soon as one so much as mentioned clinton. hell, the fanatic nature of the raving right -- clinton could do no right & bush can do no wrong -- was the reason i decided to become more involved in politics.
now i notice that a lot of people that i like & respect are doing that with bush.
this fanaticism is not good. anger, generally, is not good. hatred is not good. it is not effective. it makes us unable to debate a point on its merits or decide on a realistic / pragmatic course of action that will actually succeed rather than one that seeks only vengeance & validation. it makes us sound like raving lunatics. it reduces us to an us vs. them mentality & as soon as one starts thinking like that, the other side has won -- that is their meme, not ours.
don't get me wrong: i too think that he needs to be impeached. but not out of any personal hatred or loathing. rather, i think that he should be impeached because he has broken the law & our country is a country of laws & no man -- not the president, not even the christ -- is above the law.
in the end, anger, hatred, fanaticism: all are useless, blinding, irremediable. these are the true enemies of our society, whether incorporated externally into al queda or internally into the right's hatred of clinton or the left's hatred of bush.
as soon as you start fighting not for strategic gain but for personal validation of your emotions, you have lost the battle; as soon as you start looking at your opponents not as humans who, win or lose, should have the same rights as you, but as obstacles to be humiliated, run over, destroyed, you have lost the war.
s.